Wene Owino
1 July 2009
Gaborone — An unnamed Kenyan has been cited in a scam in Botswana where foreigners marry locals in sham liaisons to enjoy immigration, labour and financial benefits offered by the diamond-rich southern African country.
The District Commissioner in charge of the Botswana capital city Gaborone, Ms Wame Samapipi told a private weekly, The Botswana Gazette that the Kenyan was busted when he attempted to get married twice - the first time to an under-age girl.
The Kenyan raised suspicion when he appeared with a different woman for marriage shortly after his efforts to enter holy matrimony with the under-age girl failed.
Ms Samapipi asserted that her office suspects that many marriages involving foreigners and locals are fake. "We do have statistics at the moment but last year, a Kenyan national wanted to marry a Motswana young woman but could not because she was underage. Within a month he had come back with another woman who was of age, and this raised our suspicion that this was a marriage of convenience," she said.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs, Ms Lebogang Bok told the paper that they investigate suspicious marriages between locals and foreigners to determine whether they are genuine. She indicated that Botswana has busted the marriage scam used by foreigners to by-pass the laws of the country.
She said that marriages of convenience in Botswana are common between Asians and Africans. Such marriages are contracted to make it easy for foreigners to get work and residence permits. Foreigners also tie the knot with locals to make it easy to get Botswana citizenship and to enjoy the generous government financial packages reserved for Batswana.
Ms Bok told Batswana to stop engaging in sham marriages with foreigners because it has national security implications.
"The practice is very dangerous to the security and economy of the country," she warned.
"Batswana should know that when they contract marriages that might turn out to be for convenience, they actually open doors for these people to have a stake in all support programmes which the country has put in place for citizens," she added.
Reports say that this year, five Asians and three Africans who had applied to marry locals in Botswana have been turned down. "One Pakistani man had his application rejected last month when the Gaborone DC became suspicious when he asked for his application for marriage to be fast-tracked," The Gazette reported.
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