Chidimma Adetshina’s mother has the right to use fraudulent SA ID and passport until Home Affairs withdraws them

Chidimma Adetshina, a former Top 15 contestant in Miss South Africa, and her mother have received letters from the Department of Home Affairs under the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act. This development follows the departure of Adetshina’s mother, a prime suspect in an advanced fraud and corruption investigation, who traveled to Nigeria despite her involvement in a high-profile case concerning immigration control violations.

According to Duwayne Esau, spokesperson for the minister, the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks) has now assumed responsibility for the matter.He stated that issuing the letters was a preliminary step before retrieving the alleged fraudulent IDs and passports.

On Sunday, ActionSA reached out to the Department of Home Affairs for clarification on how Adetshina’s mother managed to travel to Nigeria while still under investigation.

“Given the nature of the investigation, which involves circumventing immigration controls, it is reasonable to expect that any travel would be restricted, especially to Nigeria,” said ActionSA’s Lerato Ngobeni in a statement.

However, Esau refuted this train of thought saying: “The owners of these documents can use them until they have been withdrawn by the department”.

The party cited the “alarming” figures of fraudulent applications originating from Nigeria, as highlighted in the June 2022 report by the Ministerial Committee on the Issuance of Permits and Visas.

“The report revealed that 12,177 out of 36,647 detected fraudulent applications came from Nigeria, underscoring the:  scale of the problem.”

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