Langelihle Chagwe

Langelihle Chagwe

Busisiwe Khoza's fiance paid ilobolo in June, and the couple immediately started preparing for their wedding.

She wanted to change her surname from that of her mother to her father's.

But when she went to the Department of Home Affairs' offices in Boksburg, Khoza, 25, of Vosloorus, Ekurhuleni discovered she was already "married".

In yet another in a long list of home affairs bungles and frauds, she was told she was married to a man known only as "Mohammed". The marriage was registered in August last year.

Khoza said she was using her mother's maiden name of Nkosi and she wanted to change to her father's surname of Tyonki, when she discovered that she was "married".

She told Sowetanthe bogus marriage was now preventing her from marrying her fiance.

"This 'marriage' is making my life a misery," Khoza said

The Boksburg office of home affairs confirmed the registration of the marriage and said the matter had been referred to the department's head office in Pretoria.

Local manager Moses Xaba said Khoza and her parents would have to make affidavits that she had never been married.

Xaba also said syndicates were using different ways of obtaining people's identity documents which they used fraudulently.

The department's national spokesman Mantshele Tau said he would only comment today - because he was not in the office yesterday.