Africa-Press – South-Africa. The Border Management Authority (BMA) is rolling out a series of security upgrades as part of its ongoing strategy to modernise South Africa’s border management system.
Speaking at a press conference on the first quarter of the 2025/26 financial year, BMA Commissioner Dr Michael Masiapato highlighted key developments, including the introduction of secure, traceable immigration stamps, drone-based surveillance and new training initiatives in counterfeit detection.
He said the BMA introduced new security stamps on Friday, replacing the old, vulnerable stamps that had been used by immigration specialists.
This followed widespread misuse of the stamps, with individuals illegally stamping people’s passports with fraudulently reproduced stamps in the past few months.
Masiapato said the initiative formed part of the BMA’s broader commitment to strengthening national security and represented a deliberate step towards enhancing the integrity of border control processes.
The authority had collaborated with the Government Printing Works and designed the new stamps with the highest security standards, including the BMA logo to prevent tampering, forgery and unauthorised use.
“Each of the immigration officers has been allocated a specific stamp with its unique number linked to each officer to trace back should their allocated stamp be found to facilitate illegal migration into the country,” he said.
The BMA was now embarking on redesigning new stamps for other specialised functions such as agriculture, health and environment.
Masiapato also announced that six border guards had qualified as drone pilots in July.
This is as the authority tries to strengthen border security efforts by leveraging technology-driven solutions such as the usage of drones for border surveillance.
To increase drone operation capacity, he said they plan to send more border guards for pilot training.
“The skills they have acquired will strengthen border security efforts through enhanced surveillance and increased visibility, particularly in the identified vulnerable segments of the borderline. Further, we have also partnered with the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) and trained the border guards in counterfeit detection and currency handling, giving them the necessary skills to identify counterfeit banknotes and coins in circulation.”
Between April 1 and June 30, the BMA intercepted and deported 9,954 individuals who had attempted to enter South Africa illegally. Of these, 5,826 were found to be undocumented, 2,127 were deemed inadmissible and 2,001 were classified as undesirables.
The majority of those intercepted and deported individuals were Basotho, Zimbabweans and Mozambicans.
“In this quarter, our border law enforcement team also intercepted and handed over to SAPS a total of 15 high-powered suspected stolen vehicles for further handling. Incrementally, since July 2022, the border guards have intercepted more than 349 vehicles which were meant to be smuggled out of the country by criminal syndicates,” Masiapato said.
During the quarter under review, port immigration specialists processed 8,582,250 passengers entering and leaving the country.
Port health specialists processed 986 permits for the movement of mortal remains during the three-month period, of which 44 were imported into the country while 942 were exported out of the country.
About 13 children were intercepted across the various ports, of which five were unaccompanied and handed over to officials of the department of social development for further processing.
“The remaining eight who were with their parents were refused entry as they did not meet the entry requirements into the country. We would like to re-emphasise the requirements for the cross-border movement of children. A child who is under alternative care must produce a certified copy of an authorisation letter from the provincial head of the department of social development before departure,” he said.
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