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I welcome the opportunity to continue my dialogue with the press as we begin a new year. The Department has already embarked on the process of operating in terms of the required planning framework, and our priorities have already become cluster priorities. The allocation of funding for key projects that we have obtained is a tangible outcome of our intense participation.

With regards to the Governance and Administration Cluster, the Department is directly involved in the following key programmes:
* HANIS incorporating the smart card facility
* The re-writing of the National Population Register
* The upgrading of the Movement Control System
* The rationalisation of ports of entry
* Equitable distribution of offices and progress with regards to the finalisation of the Immigration Bill.

The Home Affairs National Identification System (HANIS) is one of the most ambitious IT programmes underway in the country. It is destined to change the face of governance as well as public service delivery, civic life and business. Foremost is the impact that the introduction of the smart card will have on social benefits.

The Department of Home Affairs has been working very closely with a number of other departments in the arena of smart cards and e-governance. The envisaged uses of the smart ID card will offer state of the art technology and utility to the citizenry and also enable South Africa to leapfrog most of the world's technology competitors. The smart ID card will be the new face of government services, reinforcing the Batho Pele principles that we subscribe to. It will enhance government services by making them more efficient and bringing them closer to citizens. It is also envisaged that the card will eventually be used by a number of private organisations such as banks, insurance companies, medical aid schemes and many more to combat fraud.

We intend to make the smart card available for the financial year 2002/2003. This process will be accomplished by an extensive education campaign. Plans and priorities for HANIS and the smart card for 2002 - 2004 are the following:

* On February 2002 the HANIS Contractor, the Marpless Consortium, is scheduled to make a formal and official hand-over of the system to the Department in what is called, in System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) terms, the Basic System Commissioning; commercial verification; back record conversion of the 40 million fingerprints; procurement of the smart card supply; and issuance of smart ID cards to citizens

I have appointed an Independent Commission, headed by Professor Fink Haysom, to provide us with recommendations on how this process should be better structured to avoid the possibility of suspicion of corruption and to ensure maximum efficiency, effectiveness and value for money.

Electronic Document System

Based on evaluations and analysis of the National Population Register (NPR), it was concluded that the largest contributing factor to the Department's service impact and business process cost is the current largely manual Records and Archiving environment which is utilised by all components of the Department for verification, validation and information processing. High-level calculations performed for the Chief Directorate: Civic Services indicate that the budget impact caused by the largely manual records environment could be between R200 million and R400 million per annum. Since the records environment is the foundation platform for the NPR and all additional Home Affairs systems and processes, it was decided that an electronic document management system should be addressed as a priority. Therefore, a contract for this system was awarded in October 2001

The current implementation of this transversal, online records system for the Department will provide the following:

* Replacement of the current microfilm and paper records environment, which is utilising excessive floor space within all the Home Affairs offices throughout the country
* A large reduction in the cost of business transactions to the Department
* Expansive fraud and corruption reduction relating to all systems and business processes of the Department
* Effective front-desk client service, thus improving the responsiveness and public image of the Department
* Effective movement of the greater portion of the Department's workload to the front-desk, which will relieve Head Office staff members of the current backlog and workload and effectively improve transaction turnaround times; effective and fast queries and verifications, due to greatly improved system response times;
* Greatly reduced workload for all Home Affairs staff members, permitting these staff members to attend to other important work;
* Information accuracy and integrity, due to the visual nature of the system; simplification of all business processes, eg. The issuing of unabridged birth, death and marriage certificates, as well as citizen and permanent residence verification and authentication; and
* A centralised and standardised records system, which will remove the need for the numerous costly point solutions currently utilised. This will reduce the overall cost impact to the Department of Home Affairs for these systems.

The new Immigration Act

At the opening of Parliament last year, the President expressed the intention that the new immigration legislation be finalised by the end of last year. The time frame for the passing of the Immigration Bill will depend on the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs, which, I am given to understand, has completed the first reading of the Bill.

After five years of intense policy formulation, a new vision for migration control in the 21st century has been developed for South Africa, and is embodied in the Immigration Bill now before Parliament. The Immigration Bill was tabled in the Home Affairs Portfolio Committee in June 2001 and formally introduced on August 23, being then reintroduced with one amendment on October 21, 2001. Technically, the Bill has been before the Committee since June last year, even though its previous drafts were shared with the Committee and the public alike for two years. It will hopefully be enacted during the course of 2002, with the launching of this Act accompanying an education campaign.

Movement Control System (MCS)

In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, the need for more effective border control has become imperative in terms of national security considerations. The current Movement Control System does not comply with these requirements any longer, and Cabinet has decided that upgrading of the MCS is necessary. An inter-governmental committee is currently investigating this issue. The launching of a new, on-time, online MCS will be fast-tracked during the course of 2002 linking all our ports of entry with Head Office and District offices and interdepartmental programmes. Long term, we are exploring ways and means to integrate the MCS within the HANIS project, and possibly issuing smart cards to foreigners which will serve both as their entry permit and their identification document and departure record.

Government Printing Works

During the course of this year, the Department will finalise the restructuring of the Government Printing Works into a fully-fledged private, but state owned enterprise, possibly with a view to further privatisation. We will be putting in place mechanisms to ensure that, by the end of 2002, this unit will be run by a board and all its activities properly scrutinised to ensure that before the end of the 2002/2003 financial year, the Government Printing Works is no longer the responsibility of my Department

Film and Publications Board

The urgency for legislation to combat cyber crime, especially with regard to child pornography cannot be overemphasised, while respecting fundamental liberties such as private content in non-commercial sites and the margins of freedom of the Internet industry. Inputs are still being gathered on this matter to reconcile conflicting interests with a view to tabling legislation in Parliament during the course of the year.

Training

To prepare ourselves for this eventful year, the year of vuk'uzenzele! The Department will embark on extensive training programmes for its entire staff to ensure that we are ready and able to function at the required level of service excellence.

I thank you.

Issued by Ministry of Home Affairs

11 February 2002