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18 May 2005

Madam Speaker
Cabinet Colleagues
Our Deputy Minister Gigaba
Honourable Members
Botswana High Commissioner, His Excellency MJ Masisi
Our new Director General, Mzuvukile Maqetuka, DDGs
Senior Managers of our Department
Friends !

Allow me to start by acknowledging in our midst the Honourable Prof Mbemba-Fundu, the Minister of Interior, Security and Decentralisation of the Democratic Republic of Congo, who is currently on an official visit to our country. We are indeed glad that you are able to join us on the important occasion as we present our budget Vote to Parliament.

Madam Speaker and Honourable Members,

Two days ago we had an opportunity to publicly receive report of a survey on the quality of service within the Department of Home Affairs.

It is important to indicate that the survey, conducted by the Southern African Migration Project, was not commissioned by the Department of Home Affairs, whether directly or indirectly. It was an independent survey commissioned by the Southern African Migration Project. It sought to test the impressions of the public on the services rendered by our department, the level of understanding by our officials of their own work and policies governing such work, the impact and success of the Turn Around Strategy and other service delivery issues.

We had decided to make that report public because it acknowledged the progress we have made, the challenges lying ahead of us and some of the negative public impressions about the Department of Home Affairs. The survey, however also shows the reality that despite the many problems that are still there, a new institution has taken shape and that we are firmly on track towards the achieving an improved level of service delivery. The report asserts that this improvement in levels of service delivery has affected the overall impressions that our clients have about the Department: At one point it says and I quote:

“Most customers are positively disposed towards the Department, and are optimistic about its ability to continue delivering quality services.”

In agreement with our own observations and assessment, the report is also cautious when it notes:

“The positive results of the survey do not mean, however, that there are no problems or issues to be addressed. The Department must still question whether or not measures can be taken to further enhance the positive perceptions of its customers and officials, and to improve service delivery.”

Madam Speaker, we cannot agree more. We believe that the conclusions of this report firmly affirms our view that following the work that has been done in the past twelve months since our last Budget Vote, the ground has now been prepared for our people to benefit from a better service when they interact with our Department. This is the basis of our report back to you on the undertakings that we had made before this House almost a year ago.

Honourable members and friends, we had committed ourselves before all of you here that we would dedicate most of our time and resources towards ensuring that the Department of Home Affairs does not continue to be a source of frustration for the millions of South Africans and foreigners that interact with the Department for one service or another.

Today we are able to report in the first place that most of the things we said we shall do in this mission, have been done.

As promised, Madam Speaker, we are succeeding in our efforts to bring about more convenient access for those who have to travel long distances to get Home Affairs services. We have put in place a number of initiatives aimed at bringing our services closer to those who find it difficult to get to Home Affairs offices.

We reported to this House last year that as part of our support for the programme to register more than 1 million South African children who were outside the social net for child support grants, we launched a national birth registration campaign in 2002. The success of this campaign has helped government to exceed the initial target for child support grants.

We have since strengthened this campaign by increasing accessibility for mothers to register their children in a convenient environment. We have now provided connectivity to 69 hospitals in all the nine provinces to make it possible for newly born babies to be registered immediately after their birth, allowing for speedy processing of the child support grant should they be legible. These facilities are also being utilized to capture Notices of Death for the issuing of death certificates.

Additional to this, Madam Speaker, we have also sought to provide relief to mostly rural communities by building 67 state-of-the-art mobile units, fully computerised and equipped with satellite connectivity to provide real time processing of applications and the speedy issuing of all enabling certificates in rural communities.

Ten of these mobile units were unveiled at a ceremony in King Williamstown in the Eastern Cape last Friday, 13 May. I must say, Madam Speaker, that I felt very humbled by the sense of appreciation and signs of relief on the faces of the rural masses who had gathered to witness this unveiling. Those faces beamed with newly found hope. Ndi thanda u kuba ndi bulele kakhulu ku nndunankulu we phondo lase Ntshona koloni ngo ku zi nikezela kwakhe u ku qinisekisa ukuphumelela kwa lo mcimbi. Sithi ngxatsho ke, Mazenethole. U ya bulelela umzi.

Honourable members might already have seen that a certain number of our offices are already opening beyond working hours during the week and until lunch time on weekends. This is part of the flexi-hours system that we now intend to implement in all our offices as part of our programme to provide convenient and easy access.

At the beginning of the month of August last year, we launched a campaign on the registration of marriages and the verification of status thereof. We had called on all South Africans, particularly women, to come forth and verify their marital status on the National Population Register. This was to ensure that those that find themselves married without their consent are able to apply for the expunging of such unions.

We are now in week 41 since the launch of the campaign, and since then we have had a total of 179 123 people coming to verify their status. Among those, 2 636 have so far claimed that their status was incorrectly reflected. We have so far succeeded in expunging 1 977 marriages after investigation of the cases and we are following up on the perpetrators. A total of 18 109 people came forward to register their customary unions. I am making a further call particularly for elderly people to be assisted to register their marriages as we have realised that upon their death their certificates consistently reflect that they have never been married and this is in turn causes a lot of distress for families.

We have decided to take further this campaign to cover all aspects of verification of status and other data in the National Population Register. On 7 April, during the Imbizo Focus Week of government, we launched a national campaign of Lokisa Ditokomane calling on South Africans who have corrections to make on their documents regarding their surnames, names, dates of birth, marital status, and so on. This is because, Madam Speaker there has been an outcry in the public, particularly the media, where a number of South Africans claim that they have been declared dead while still alive or they have suffered humiliation due to other incorrect reflections of their particulars.

For a period of three months, the department will have dedicated counters where all people who need this assistance can come forward and receive relief free of charge.

We are, however aware that while some of the problems of irregularity were created by our own officials, there are also cases where other people have changed their own status with a view to conduct criminal activities. These include people who have colluded to fraudulently claim insurance benefits by obtaining false death certificates. We are also on the lookout for those who want to conveniently inflate their own ages in order to qualify for old age grants before their time. So while we ensure that every deserving case is dealt with to the satisfaction of the affected people, we shall also subject every case to an investigation.

I must reiterate, honourable members, our commitment to ensure that all South Africans are accorded their dignity and place as citizens of this country through the acquiring of relevant documents. In this way we live up to the undertaking we made through the Freedom Charter that “South Africa belongs to all who live in it”, united in our diversity. We are indeed happy that we are playing some part in the realization of this ideal. I am raising this, Madam Speaker because during our roll out of the permanent citizen registration programme, we had to deal with a very touching story which demonstrated to us that one of the most painful scars that the Apartheid system left in the hearts of our people was to deny them a right to citizenship, in whatever form.

We have taken a decision Madam Speaker that we should invite umama u Cecilia Flink whose experience at the hands of the previous government’s policy of population classifications, was subjected to the lowest form of humiliation, in that by refusing to grant her citizenship status, they have refused to acknowledge her existence, not only as a citizen, but as a human being as well.

With her permission, we will share with you her brief background:

She is an African woman from Soweto. She was married to a coloured man and as such she had a Book of Life. 35 years ago, she went to Home Affairs to register her daughter and upon her arrival, she was questioned on why she had a Book of Life as she was dark in complexion. It was said that she was too dark to use a white surname. She tried to explain herself but her Book of Life was confiscated. Since then, she has been without an identity document (ID) and therefore deprived of an opportunity to access government services, in particular the old age grant. Despite the fact that we have all won our right to vote, she never enjoyed this right.

When we read about her plight we paid immediate attention to her case. We sought the intervention of the Department of Social Development in Gauteng and in November last year, for the first time after many decades, she received her first green ID book. Mama Cecilia Flink is 73-years old and she is among us here today in the gallery. We apologised to her for the agony she has been subjected to, and while that is not much, we hope the efforts we have taken to restore her dignity, can have some meaning in her life and that of her family. Accordingly, we are also proud to announce that she now has access to an old age pension grant!

It is our feeling that all South Africans need to be able to acquire their enabling documents in a manner that is efficient and without unnecessary time delays. We have decided that during this financial year, we shall cut down on the waiting period it currently takes to issue an ID from six weeks to four weeks.

We have commissioned the Human Science Research Council to conduct the Civic Services Survey that we referred to in our previous Budget Vote with a view of assisting us to understand the extent of the need for our civic services in all our communities, particularly in the rural areas.

We will receive the final report of the survey in about 60 days time, and it will assist us to plan more efficiently for the execution of our civic service mandate. Certain policy pronouncements will follow the release of the report of the survey, including whether we should continue to have late registration in the country, as well as steps we need to take to deal with those South Africans who continue to use their old reference books and blue pass books.

In this regard we are also going to look at enhancing our capacity at all our local offices by reviewing our Civic Services establishment. We need to ensure that we have both the leadership and operational level capacity adequate for us to do this work. This work will be additional to the 898 new posts that will be funded in this financial year to create capacity at lower levels. The review of the establishment of civic services will also include the matter of grading of our posts at district and local offices to ensure the proper calibre and quality of our officials at frontline level.

We have already decided to upgrade the levels of our Heads of Provinces from the current level of Director to Chief Directors and we are in the process of filling those posts. Our plan for enhancing the leadership capacity in our provinces will also include the review of our business processes and standard operating procedures, allowing more decentralization of decision making processes.

One of the areas that needed more capacity to ensure success of our plans was in our strategy to combat corruption in the Department of Home Affairs. This matter received prominence as one of the key priorities of the JCPS cluster of Government. Ours is a two pronged strategy that involves the prevention of corruption through the enhancement of systems, and the manner in which we address it if it does happen. We have had several successes through our partnerships with other law enforcement agencies in this regard. We are not fully satisfied about our progress, but we are sure that we now have both the commitment and the capacity to deal with this problem directly.

Madam Speaker, after the launch of the new National Immigration Branch of the department in April, we committed ourselves to continue implementing a programme that will ensure that our immigration service is professionalised and positioned to address both our domestic and international obligation in this area of work. In this regard we have moved to capacitate the immigration branch in terms of infrastructure and personnel. The quality of both the recruitment and training of immigration officers, structural and operational issues includes the establishment of a fully fledged inspectorate that will assist in the tracing and investigation of immigration related contraventions.

While on the matter of tracing of contraventions of our immigration laws, I would like to venture into the issue of the 61 mercenaries who were recently deported back to our country on the understanding that they are South African citizens. We have noted from our records the discrepancies regarding the manner in which some of them got to acquire citizenship in this country. The previous Government had recruited them as foreigners who were paid to fight in a war against the liberation movement thereby undermining the struggle for the freedom of our people.

Consistent to this trend, they have now continued to use our country as a spring board to mount a campaign of destabilisation in the continent, this time undermining the work led by our President to ensure that Africa achieves sustainable growth and development in conditions peace and democracy.

We intend to continue to closely monitor their movement and activities.

Honourable members, the work of improving the services that Government provides in the ports of entry has started in earnest through the establishment of an interdepartmental Border Control Co-ordination Committee (BCOCC), under the convenorship of the Department of Home Affairs. Amongst its tasks the BCOCC is to look at infrastructure development and to change the appalling conditions and state of our border posts. The Department of Home Affairs will finalise the appointment of port managers in these ports of entry.

As part of ensuring a more humane treatment of people in the ports of entry, particularly those from the African continent, we have ensured that all international airports should have dedicated counters for the processing of travellers who hold passports from African states.

As indicated in our previous presentations to this House, we have moved to harmonise the outstanding matters relating immigration legislation. Although this does not close further engagement on a future comprehensive law for immigration in the country, we are happy to report back to the nation that at least South Africa will no longer use interim regulations in its management of immigration in the country. The new immigration regulations have now been finalized and will come into effect on 1 July this year.

The current amendments to the immigration law will also introduce some changes, eliminating the red tape burden that was imposed on travellers. Some of these include:

* The Amended Act makes it a requirement that any foreigner who wishes to marry a South African and thereby obtain permanent residence in the country should have a marriage in good faith to such a South African citizen for at least five years before the status can be granted to them. This will help with our current fight against the problem of fraudulent marriages.
* In education, the regulation dealing with study permits provides that a deposit shall not be required from students from Africa, provided their governments submit a written undertaking to pay all deportation expenses in respect of such students, should this become necessary.
* There is also a benefit for workers from neighbouring and other states whose conditions of work are somehow affected by immigration. The new provisions allow for flexibility that makes it possible for mining workers from neighbouring states to easily be replaced upon death by someone from their family without immigration complications for the work permit. Workers who are dismissed are also protected in that they are no longer forced to leave their country immediately as they are now allowed time to take their case for conciliation or through the courts without relinquishing their right to be in the country.

In line with our international obligations, we have also moved to reorganise our refugee affairs section, with a view of creating more capacity in the medium term.

The most immediate action we will take is to eliminate the current backlog for status determination and to process those cases that are outstanding. The backlog project is currently underway and I am sure it will bring a lot of relief to the many asylum seekers who await protection. I will also like to thank the UNHCR for their assistance in this regard. Their continued support to ensure that we succeed in this work is greatly appreciated. In this regard we should also bid farewell to Ms Bemma Donkoh, who has worked very hard to support our work as the former country representative of the UNHCR. Mr Ebrima Camara, who is here with us today has now taken her place and we are certain that this cooperation will continue. We welcome you, sir.

We decided last year that given the many perceptions held about the Lindela Repatriation Centre both at home and internationally, it was time for the centre to be opened to public scrutiny and for everybody including the media and independent organisations to have access to the centre. Since then we have addressed a number of problem that have been reported to us about the centre and its work has been demystified. During the past financial year we moved swiftly to install information technology (IT) capacity at the centre to ensure real time verification of fingerprints at the centre so that South African citizens and any other legal persons who are mistakenly taken to the centre are verified and released as soon as possible.

I must say, Honourable members that we are giving a lot of attention to our international obligations, particularly those aspects of our work that enhances South Africa’s activities in supporting New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and the consolidation of the African Agenda. We will continue through this financial year to assist the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the establishment of a National Population Register as well as an identification system for the country as part of their preparations to hold their democratic elections. I must also take this opportunity, Madam Speaker to join our President in congratulating the DRC on the adoption of their new constitution.

In our quest to encourage easy but legally regulated human movement between ourselves and our neighbours, we have started several bilateral engagements with most Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries on visa agreements. These agreements, which are separate from the yet to be finalised SADC Protocol on the Facilitation of Free Movement, aim to waive visa requirements for certain categories of travellers between South Africa and its neighbours in a reciprocal manner. We have in this regard finalised such an agreement with Mozambique. We will, during this financial year consolidate the current engagements we are having with the rest of the neighbouring states.

We have allocated a sum of R71m for the upgrading and construction of office accommodation, as we intend to roll out offices to those areas that continue to struggle to access our services.

We have also made an additional request of R91m to be allocated to Public Works from our current savings, to finance 63 new rentals over the three-year period. This will allow us to relocate some of our worst offices into better accommodation.

Madam Speaker, as in all other financial years a big percentage of our current R2.9 billion budget will go to transfers that must be made to organisations that constitute our auxiliary services. Due to its commitments with regard to the upcoming local elections, the Independent Electoral Commission will receive a transfer of R884 million from this budget and the Film and Publication Board will receive R6,7 million.

We should report today, Madam Speaker, that we have now streamlined our budget for acquiring of IT solutions to match our capacity to implement such solutions and thereby avoiding large rollovers that result from under spending in this area. We should also report that our programme to computerise offices has registered significant achievements with 70% of the sites that needed computerisation already covered, with the exception of those offices where the accommodation was not adequate or where there were security concerns.

Accordingly, Madam Speaker, we shall continue to implement outstanding work regarding the Home Affairs National Identification System. It is, however, important, honourable members that we give some account of how far this work is. The HANIS project consists of three components being the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS), System integration and the Smart ID card. We have moved to implement the two first components with the introduction of the Electronic Document Management System as well as a Back Record Convention process to convert all finger print records into electronic format to allow for online biometric verification. We are targeting to complete the BRC during the month of September this year.

The introduction of the smart ID card, which is the outstanding component of HANIS was approved by cabinet on 25 July 2001 pending the finalisation of the procurement model for such a card. We are now at the final stages for Cabinet’s approval of such a procurement model.

We have therefore planned to continue with the implementation of all the components HANIS and have made the realistic allocations for this financial year.

The Smart ID Card project will receive R270 million, the continuation of the Back Record Conversion (BRC) will be at a cost of R132 million for this financial year, while R44.4 million will be allocated to the Electronic Document Management System (EDMS). The redesign of the Population Register will be at a cost of R15,2 million, while the rewrite of the Movement Control System (MCS) has an allocation of R72,2 million.

Our work in the past twelve months and the preparation of this Budget will not have been possible without the ever-present support of the portfolio committee of this House, I would like to thank them for being there to remind us about what we need to improve to serve our people better. Our top management as led by the Director-General was very quick to adjust to our style of working. I know that they have bended backwards to produce more within a very limited space of time. All our service providers have been an important support in our work, and I think I must take this opportunity to thank Nthwese in particular for accommodating our highly inflexible demands on them to deliver the mobile units within the planned timeframes. They have gone beyond their call of duty and obligations as a service provider.

I must also thank the staff of the Ministry of Home Affairs for the ungodly hours they have had to work and for the support you have given me. We are indeed very confident, madam Speaker that what we are presenting to this House today, is a Budget that aims to go beyond our systems issues at a macro level, and start to make real impact in the levels of service our people receive at the frontline offices of our department. We think we are turning the tide, but of course we cannot be complacent about the challenges ahead of us. We will not make empty promises to our people, we shall not lie nor claim easy victories. We believe that the problems our people raise about the department are genuine and real and we want to provide solutions to those problems. We are listening and we are here to serve.

Thank you.

Media enquiries can be directed to: Nkosana Sibuyi
Cell: 082 886 6708
Tel: (012) 810 8613

Issued by: Department Of Home Affairs
18 May 2005
Source: Department of Home Affairs (http://www.homeaffairs.gov.za)