Length of permits: renewal stamps The fact that asylum seeker permits are usually only valid for one month, means that the approximately 80,000 ASP holders of all nationalities nationwide all have to return once a month to RROs for a renewal stamp.106 The process of simply keeping existing ASP holders in the system is therefore hugely time and resource consuming. As neither the Act nor the Regulations state a time span for how long an ASP stamp should be valid, a simple way to reduce the backlog and free up staff time to process new asylum applications and finalise old ones, would be to extend the validity of the ASP to six months or one year in the first instance; in reality no ASPs are being assessed and finalised in less than this time period. Increasing the length of validity of the ASP would reduce the number of asylum seeker visits to RROs dramatically107 Asylum seekers – a cash cow The department has indicated its commitment to stamp out corruption…. These things take time to make happen…. You need to bear in mind that the Department of Home Affairs is eminently corruptible. We provide a service people need desperately…. [Barry Gilder, interview] Asylum seeker permits are free of charge. Yet the authors were informed that there is a thriving black market in ASPs. The going rate for an ASP is between R300 and R400. We were further informed by human rights lawyers that renewal stamps can also be given without queuing, for a fee of R100 per month. The National Refugee Base Line Survey108 documents bribery both in relation to receiving ASPs and in receiving renewal stamps. Around 18% of their respondents reported paying bribes for ASPs and 17% bribed for renewal stamps. The Johannesburg office was the worst, with around 33% paying bribes. In a survey conducted by the authors in August 2004, out of 51 Zimbabwean exiles who had ASPs, 15 claimed to have paid bribes in order to get them. One person claimed he paid a bribe of R400 after more than 20 visits to Home Affairs failed to result in him even accessing the office. Human rights lawyers and other informants suggested that one reason for the reluctance to issue ASPs through the “front door”, and also to finalise asylum seeker applications, is in order not to “kill the cash cow”. If a reasonable proportion of asylum seekers are routinely sufficiently frustrated by the near-impossibility of getting a “legal” ASP, then there will be a steady income from those prepared to pay bribes. Similarly, by insisting that every ASP holder returns every month for an extension, instead of lengthening the validity of the stamp, there will be a steady monthly “return” from those who do not want to queue, or who are employed and cannot take off a day a month to queue. One lawyer estimated that in the region of R20 million could be being paid to corrupt touts and/or Home Affairs officials by asylum seekers each year. 106 Some asylum seekers issued permits in terms of the old Aliens Act only return once every three months. This only applies to ASPs issued before April 2000 when the 1998 Act took effect, and therefore does not affect Zimbabweans, all of whom have had permits only since June 2002. Other RROs may offer longer validity on their permits, but the Johannesburg office offers one month stamps. 107 Supposing 50,000 asylum seekers were all making two visits per year for renewal instead of 12, there would be 100,000 renewal stamps issued instead of 600,000. 108 CASE, November 2003, op cit. 47