Not discounting the fact that a SA passport is easily obtained with the levels of corruption within our government as they are, however I think it's fair comment ... I know a number of South Africans that can't understand, let alone speak AfrikaansPeople making a fuss about the language and the type of questions.
The real problem should be that our home affairs have been giving false passports to foreigners and its become such a regular occurance that this is the lengths other airlines need to go to.