REGIONAL DIRECTORS

FRAUDULENT MARRIAGES

As you will remember, the problem of fraudulent marriages and possible measures to curb the problem were brainstormed at the Misty Hills Civic Services Workshop of November 2003. The following critical intervention strategies were decided upon:

To realize particularly the first three strategies referred to above, it is critically important that you as Regional Directors personally involve yourselves in the fight against fraudulent marriages and that you actively drive the process in your respective regions. Fraudulent marriages have reached alarming proportions and we will have to unite forces and pull out all stops to curb this problem. The Department is under extreme pressure from the community, parliamentarians, our Portfolio Committee and various others to solve this problem.

The focus should be to make it as difficult as possible to register a fraudulent marriage and where it does occur, to take immediate action to correct the registration and to bring the perpetrators to book in the shortest possible time.

To achieve these objectives, you are kindly requested to ensure that the following measures, where not in place already, are introduced in your Regions with immediate effect:

In an effort to further strengthen the control over the solemnization and registration of marriages, this office, in consultation with Legal Services and Immigration, is looking at possible amendments to the Marriage Act, 1961, and the Marriage Regulations. The ITingwe Project Team on Information Security is dealing with the matter of securing the log on procedures. You will be advised of the outcome in due course.

You are kindly requested to assess the occurrence of fraudulent marriages in your Region and to report your findings and progress on the implementation of the above-mentioned measures to me by 30 June 2004 please.

I thank you for your co-operation in this matter and am confident that with your full commitment we will succeed in eradicating the scourge of fraudulent marriages and restore the people’s faith in Home Affairs as a reliable custodian of their records.

J R CHAVALALA

p.p. DIRECTOR-GENERAL