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Year after year I have had the pleasure of coming to these strategic planning workshops of the Department of Home Affairs. Those who have been within the senior management structure of the Department for long enough will remember that many of my past interventions in this venue have been thought provoking, stimulating and, to a certain extent, controversial. I have always tried to make my presence at this workshop significant, in order to give a contribution at the policy level. This year my approach will not be different, even though what I have to say is different. In fact, it is my responsibility and prerogative as the Executive Head of the department, to set the policies, strategies and directions of this department, for as long as I am its Minister. I have never shied away from this responsibility nor abdicated from its privileges.

I have also felt that my coming to these workshops over the years should have a greater purpose than that of merely giving a pep talk to motivate senior officials to use to the best the time available on this occasion. I trust that our senior officials are highly qualified, experienced, dedicated and professional and do not need to be motivated by me. You all know what your responsibilities are and it would be demeaning for me, as your Minister, to have to remind you of them. Therefore, as in the past, I do not feel that my purpose is that of merely giving a motivational speech, even though I plead with all of you to ensure that this workshop may create a new spirit of co-operation, efficiency and productivity within the department so as to produce a new beginning.

This year my intervention at this workshop ought to be somehow different. I feel that it is incumbent upon me to look at the future of the department while considering the many matters which have gone by and those that have taken place during the past ten years. In fact, I am deeply aware that in less than two months I might no longer be the Minister of Home Affairs. Behind me lie ten years of my work within this department, during which time I tried to give policy direction to change the department from what it was into what I thought it ought to become. Ten years of hard work, creative thinking and policy leadership stretch behind that which has brought us here.

Every step I took to move the department forward in a chosen direction has been a difficult one. It has been more difficult for me to do anything with this department than for any one of my Cabinet colleagues with theirs. I often felt that the difficulty was not because of the choices I made, but because it was I, who was leading in that chosen direction, and there has been resistance in trusting and believing in Mangosuthu Buthelezi. With hindsight, all the choices we made turned out to be the correct ones and formed the basis for wide ranging support and consensus. As I look back, I am pleased to see that whenever I made interventions in this venue and put forward new policies for our department, they were the correct policies, not because I now say so, but because in the end, all relevant stakeholders and role-players ended up agreeing with them.

However, as I look forward from this standpoint on, I must also express my concerns because of the unfinished work. We are not where we should have been and I am not pleased that many matters have not yet been finalised. It has always been my commitment to leave my house in order if someone else is to take it over. There are many things that have not been completed but I hope that from this workshop plans to do so can be developed. Between past and future, there is the present in which we are considering the turnaround strategy of our department. I approved the turnaround strategy because it reflects many of the ideas and proposals, which I have put to these strategic workshops during the past years, and many of those that emerged through the initiatives, hard work and leadership of many members of our senior management.

In fact, the turnaround strategy is in great part a compendium of many existing proposals that have been repackaged to give them effectiveness and finally implement them. These proposals had been left in abeyance in the past because of the breakdown in the chain of command and communication between the Minister and his Director-General. As this chain has now been re-established, it has been possible to bring again to the fore the agenda of that which has to be done and organise it in a comprehensive and rational manner. All this has led to the so-called turnaround strategy. For this reason, I feel that the turnaround strategy has been, somehow, improperly named, and should rather have been styled as a moving forward strategy, for I do not see that it imposes on the Department a new direction. Actually, it rather eventually gives it the momentum to follow through on what has been left in abeyance.

Therefore, I really hope that this year's strategic workshop can set in place the foundation to get the job that I began, finally done and completed. The turnaround strategy embodies the policy directions, which I have given over the past ten years, ranging from the reform of migration control to the devolution of civic affairs services to municipalities. I hope that these projects will flourish and that they will be completed during the next financial year. Nonetheless, I regret that the project aimed at devolving the delivery aspects of civic affairs to municipalities and other entities capable of exercising these powers in a reliable manner, has been delayed. I would have liked to have left office with a clear plan on how this project of the devolution of powers will be finalised on the basis of an agreed time frame and established procedures. I really hope that progress can be made in this direction during this workshop and that this item will figure permanently in our strategic plan.

In fact, year after year I have come to this strategic workshop giving the instruction that this devolution of power be planned in detail, but my instructions were not carried forward. Often I have felt like a car engine when the gear is placed in neutral, knowing that it can go up to very high revolutions, but which, however, do not translate into any movement, because of lack of transmission. It took a long time for the chain of transmission to be re-established and even now it is not as fully functional as it should be. In fact, in spite of his integrity, good nature, high intellect, competence and loyalty, I must accept that, unfortunately, my own Director-General cannot be completely on my team and has to live in the difficult situation of someone who has been placed in an unavoidable conflict of loyalties. However, I am confident that as I leave this department, that I leave it in the good hands of a dedicated Director-General.

Everything I have done in this department has not been in my interest, nor in the interest of my political party, but exclusively in the interest of South Africa and the interest of the State as I perceived them and understood them. It is for this reason that I have expected from all of you the full measure of loyalty and dedication, because whatever I have done has not been for Mangosuthu Buthelezi or for my political career. Actually, there are people who think that what I had to do in this department has not been good for my political career and surely not good for my health, in spite of the fact that God has given me an extraordinary physical condition of good health. In truth, there was no political benefit in my pushing the reform of migration control as hard as I had to. Nor has there been any political advantage or personal gain in my advocating the devolution of powers in respect of civic affairs. I have done so because such devolution is the only policy that makes sense if we are to provide all our citizens with an equal quality of services throughout the territory.

For this reason, I appeal to all of you to look at policies and issues beyond Mangosuthu Buthelezi to ensure that if in sixty days I am not the Minister of Home Affairs, there will be continuity in the work that I have begun, because none of such work was done in my own interest, but in the interest of the State. I hope that our Director-General may remain the centre of this continuity. I hope that this continuity will also be pursued in respect of those projects, which I was not allowed to finalise, in spite of my efforts to do so.

I had requested the Director-General to prepare for me a draft Cabinet Memorandum by 19 February 2004 to finalise decision-making in respect of the HANIS project, and to replace the submission that was ready to go to Cabinet when he took office, in case he did not agree with such a submission or with any of its features. I have only now received from the Director-General the report from the advisors appointed to determine the feasibility of a private-public partnership (PPP) as the modality for the procurement of the new identity document, which is central to the completion of the HANIS project. After long, lengthy and delayed studies this report now suggests that a PPP is not the viable and suitable way for the State to procure the new identity cards, which was the conclusion our department reached more than a year ago, when I accepted the suggestions of the Haysom Commission and that of the Minister for Science and Technology for a strategic tender with certain features.

I am not pleased that the matter has been so delayed that it becomes almost impossible for me to fulfil my commitment, which I made to Cabinet and the nation, that I would finalise the procurement of the identity document before the end of my term, and in a corruption-free manner. It is most regrettable that as I stand before you today I do not know what type of identity document we are going to use, what its technical features are, what type of material it is going to be made of and, most of all, how it is going to be acquired and how the tender is going to be structured. Hopefully, now that the report of the transition advisors is out of the way, these questions may be finally answered and become part of the draft Cabinet Memorandum I had requested. I hope that this workshop will offer the opportunity to those concerned to also discuss this matter, because it is urgent, to which end I would invite the Director-General to share with all his colleagues the instruction letter I sent him. Whatever work can be done on this occasion will help as I hope that decision-making on the features and modalities of the identity card of the HANIS project can be finalised expeditiously and that the actual procurement may be completed this year.

I also hope that this year can finally see the privatisation of the Government Printing Works, which was another project that I started many years ago and yet is still far from seeing its completion.

I also regret that because of the delays in the coming into force of the new and final Immigration Regulations, the department has not yet initiated the review of the implementation of the Immigration Act, which I had requested last year. It is regrettable that political difficulties continue to bedevil the implementation of this important piece of legislation that, by now, should have been taken out of the realm of politics. Immigration will continue to require deep policy discussions, which by now, should have been entrenched at a level in which they can be conducted in an objective manner, around the functions and role of the Immigration Advisory Board and that of public participation. However, I trust that as things move forward people will realise that what we have done in our reform of migration control has, indeed, been in the public interest and in the service of the State. I really hope that the department will respect the policy function of the Immigration Advisory Board and understand that in a modern State under the rule of law, policy activities must be conducted in the transparent and participatory manner, which the role of such Board embodies.

I also hope that during this strategic workshop a proper business plan can now be finalised in respect of how the department will establish a capable and competent inspectorate, to begin enforcing our immigration laws throughout the territory and to exercise its new statutory functions in respect of border control and the administration of ports of entry. It is time that the department plans and effects the full implementation of the Immigration Act.

These are great challenges that my administration leaves behind for the new Minister, whoever he or she may be. I regret that these challenges could not have been finalised before the end of my term of office. In fact, the Immigration Act was adopted by Parliament after many delays, but was passed almost two years ago. The intervening delays can only partially be ascribed to litigation, which has postponed the finalisation of regulations. Unfortunately, because of lack of sufficient administrative leadership, the department itself did not move as fast as it should have in planning the implementation of the Immigration Act. The planning of the implementation of the Immigration Act should have begun five years ago, when we originally finalised the drafting of the Immigration Bill. I gave many instructions in that respect, many of which were defied and not implemented.

Therefore, I plead that even though we are moving along the same strategies, the department now changes the way it goes about doing its business. It is time that the department began operating on the basis of a proper business plan, thinking and planning ahead, and begins following the instructions of its Minister. For instance, the department should be operating in such a fashion, which begins anticipating the devolution of civic affairs functions to municipalities and other entities, so that when that happens it will not be found to be unprepared. By the same token, the functions of migration control should be changed now to reflect the new way in which the department should operate through its regional offices and missions.

I am most pleased that the new organisational diagram, structure and establishment of the department, which I approved just three days ago, moves us exactly in that direction I praise the Director-General for having given his leadership to finalising this project after so many delays. The new structure is a very good foundation to build upon. Now that the structure is in place, I hope that the re-organisation of functions and the way in which the department operates may follow expeditiously. We must change attitudes and practices and the way people work and operate, which may remain the most difficult of all tasks. However this task must not only be attended to, but also be precisely planned for, and it may be the case that greater emphasis must be placed both on more training, as well as more stringent discipline. It may be the case that we are to give a helping hand while holding a whip. These are difficult matters that I would like you to consider and address in next year's plan.

These are great challenges that I know our officials will master. I am satisfied that I leave behind a department with many capable senior officials and with a good man as its Director-General. It is for you to forge a new bond that enables your collegial leadership to carry the department through its future challenges. This department has some extraordinary men and women. You have extraordinary tasks before you. However, in its collegiality of wisdom and strength, this Department has what it takes to meet the challenges.

I wish you well with your deliberations and look forward to receiving the strategic plan of the department for the next year, which I really hope will be finalised before the next elections. I would really like to be the Minister who signs off this last report and I hope that all of you will work hard enough to oblige me in this respect, so as to make sure that I have the opportunity of reviewing the strategic plan before it goes to the printers. I wish you well and pray to God Almighty that He may bless you all in your deliberations.

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Issued by: Ministry of Home Affairs
4 March 2004

Source: Department of Home Affairs (http://www.home-affairs.gov.za)