N Mapisa-Nqakula: Home Affairs Dept Budget Vote 2006/07

30 May 2006

Madam Speaker
Deputy Minister Malusi Gigaba
Honourable Members
Director General and Senior managers of the Department of Home Affairs
Honoured guests of the Department and the Ministry
Friends!

Earlier this month, members of this House led the nation in marking the 10th
anniversary of our country�s constitution. This was a significant event in the
lives of all South Africans as it recommitted us to the noble principle on
which our new nation is built � the principle of a country united, democratic,
non sexist and non-racial. We celebrated that in the past twelve years, we have
lived in a country that truly belongs to all.

We stand before you here, in the first instance to rededicate ourselves to
these principles and to make further undertaking that our mandate as a
government and as a department should support these fundamental ideals of our
new society.

In a way, Madam Speaker, the work of the department of Home Affairs has
always been intimately weaved into the lives of our citizenry and the history
of our country in general. It was because of the discriminatory laws governing
the issuing of passbooks by this department that women marched on the Union
Buildings 50 years ago in protest. As we mark this anniversary of that historic
march, we once again remember how much we are indebted to those heroines who
were bold enough to take the first steps. It is therefore fitting that for us
as a department, we should dedicate this Budget Vote to them.

Honourable Members,

Almost two years ago, we came before this House to present our plan to
reposition the Department of Home Affairs in order for it to fulfil its
mandate.

At the time we made a frank acknowledgement regarding serious weaknesses at
organisational and policy levels within our department. It had always been our
view that such weaknesses had a negative impact on the ability of the
department to function effectively. We presented a plan that recognised that
nothing short of fundamental transformation and reorganisation could ensure a
proper turn around for the department. This plan clearly identified major
interventions both in the short and long term.

In line with our obligation, we also made an undertaking to periodically
report to this House on the amount of progress we were making in the
implementation of our plan. We called upon this House to hold us accountable
and responsible for the targets we set ourselves and to ensure that in interest
of the people we serve, these targets are met.

The first part of this presentation therefore will outline a progress report
on those key priorities which formed part of our budget for last year.

Madam Speaker, last year we had offered a budget presentation was designed
to allow our work to start making real impact on the improvement of service
delivery at lower levels.

We indicated that we were going to receive the report of a survey conducted,
at our request, by the Human Science Research Council (HSRC) to determine the
extent of the problems regarding our services to citizens. Through this survey,
we wanted to have access to reliable data that determines the extent of lack of
services and the areas of prevalence with regard to civic services provision.
This data would in turn be useful in determining key areas for our
intervention.

The report of the survey has highlighted a number of factors that impact on
service delivery to citizens, particularly in rural areas. These factors have
been wide ranging, including lack of access, awareness, proper understanding of
the need to be properly registered as well as historical factors.

The report has covered a number of areas of prevalence, by province, by
race, by social status, education and so on.

According to this report, there are approximately 1,5 million South Africans
over the age of 16 who do not have a green bar coded identity document. This
represents 6% of South Africans eligible for identity documents. Most
importantly it also shows that living standards and levels of education are a
factor in these statistics and shows that people who live in rural areas, with
lower or no levels of education, are more likely to be without IDs. The report
also reveals that there were even less people with green bar coded IDs in the
Western Cape and amongst white South Africans in general.

Most black people in the rural areas have not applied for registration of
their children and this is more prevalent in KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and the
North West provinces. Similar statistics were noted with regard to the
notification and registration of deaths.

We have since started to develop an implementation plan to take forward the
recommendations of the survey with a view to deploy more resources to target
specific areas as identified.

In anticipation of the capacity requirements to implement the solutions
emerging from the survey, we had undertaken to specifically investigate the
transformation of our branch of civic services. As Honourable members can note
from our strategic plan we shall be appointing a project team under a new
project manager to steer this process. We envisaged that the transformation of
civic services should cover its organisational capacity, workflow and business
processes as well as weaknesses in systems, such as the lack of a track and
tracing tool for applications and other documents.

The budget that we present today makes specific provisions for the funding
of a new civic services establishment both in this financial year and
throughout the remainder of the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF).

Honourable members will remember that as part of our efforts to enhance the
capacity of the department, we had made an undertaking to put in place sound
leadership capacity in all our provinces, and we are indeed happy to report
that our new provincial managers have recently been appointed and have joined
us here today in the gallery. While these Managers are admittedly still new and
are only settling within the department, each one of them is faced with
immediate tasks of consolidating further leadership and operational capacity at
lower levels of their provinces.

In addition, we have also succeeded in filling the identified critical posts
as promised in our previous budget vote, thereby creating much needed
additional capacity to ensure improvement of service delivery in our
offices.

During this financial year we shall finalise the devolution of certain
administrative powers to provinces in order to ensure better efficiency while
reducing the current levels of over centralisation that frustrates service
delivery due to red tape.

We are also reviewing some of the occupational categories of our
organisational establishment in order to professionalise Home Affairs as an
organisation. This is because currently, well over 70% of our human resources
are officials at level seven and below. This situation undermines the need for
strategic leadership at our provincial and local offices. We are enlisting the
support and assistance of the Department of Public Service and Administration
in doing this work.

Madam Speaker,

I am particularly happy to report that we are finally making progress in
addressing some of the structural weaknesses pertaining to our ports of entry,
and in particular the problems of congestion at our major International

Airports.

I have now appointed a departmental task team that is tasked with monitoring
the implementation of our rescue plan on an ongoing basis to ensure the proper
functioning of our structures in these ports of entry. We have been working in
close consultation with all the stakeholders involved, including the Board of
Airline Representatives and the Airports Company of South Africa and we are
indeed encouraged by the fact since the work of the task team the problem of
congestion at the Airport has, to a certain extent, been resolved.

The Task Team is also working on extending some of these solutions to other
ports of entry as evidenced in their work at both the Beit Bridge and Lubombo
land border posts.

This success has been complementary to the work of the Border Control
Coordinating Committee (BCOCC) which has continued to bring together all the
government department that operate at our borders to work together to ensure
better management of our ports of entry.

As the lead department within the BCOCC, we have recently appointed a Chief
Director whose sole responsibility is to ensure proper functioning of the BCOCC
and its various sub committees.

Madam Speaker,

Last year we indicated that we shall make a further allocation for
additional mobile units only in the next financial year in terms of our
budgeting cycle. Due to the impressive work and relief that the current units
have given to the communities, we have decided to add to the 67 mobile units
deployed in throughout our provinces. Budget allocations for such additional
units have been made to the tune of R79 million and further allocations will be
made for the 2007/08 financial year as well.

We have also introduced extended hours of service in all our offices during
the week. These offices are also open on Saturday until lunchtime to allow more
access to our services by communities.

At the level of our contribution to international migration policy,
particularly relating to the link between development and migration, we have
taken very seriously our responsibilities as Chair of the G77 group and are
currently busy with the preparations for the High Level Dialogue on Migration
that will take place in New York later this year. We are also able to report to
this House that the Protocol for Facilitation of the Free Movement of People
has now been adopted by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and
during this session of Parliament, we will present this protocol to parliament
for ratification. This protocol, which aims to promote regional economic
development, will take a number of years to implement. In the meantime, South
Africa is continuing the process of entering into bi-lateral visa-waiver
agreements with SADC member states, and strengthening co-operation on
immigration issues, including the proper alignment of resource and enforcement
capacities.

The Immigration Amendment Act of 2004, came into effect on the 1st of July
last year, and the Immigration Regulations also seeks to meet our foreign
policy objectives in respect of the region. Just two examples of groups who
have benefited from changes in policy are the cross-border traders (many of
whom are women) who can more easily travel to South Africa and students from
Africa who are no longer required to pay repatriation deposits if their
countries agree to take responsibility for their return.

Honourable members

We are reaching the end of the first year of implementation of the Amendment
Act, and are satisfied that both the Act and its Regulations represent a sound
policy basis for the management of immigration. We are happy that the policy
objectives set by the President in 2004 when he directed us to amend the
Immigration Act have been met. We do, however, recognise that there have been
teething problems in the implementation of the Act, and these are being
addressed. Members must also realise that as Home Affairs we only facilitate
the import of needed skills into the country. As Minister of Home Affairs, I do
not decide what those skills are. The Act requires me to consult with other
Ministers and their departments in deciding on quotas and with the recent
launch of the Joint Initiative on Priority Skills Acquisition (JIPSA) (of which
we are part) we will revise the current quotas in consultation with other
stakeholders.

I have taken note of representations made with regard to the current
two-year limit on the Intra-company transfer work permit and this period will
be extended.

Members will recall that following a number death cases in Lindela, I
commissioned an independent inquiry into the matter. The recommendations of
this committee of inquiry were immediately implemented and the result has been
an overwhelming improvement with the cases of death reduced drastically.

The permanent campaign for civic registration has continued to make positive
impact in the lives of ordinary South Africans. All the elements of this
campaign, including the marriage status campaign, the ID campaign, birth
registration campaign and the Lokisa Ditikomane, have brought greater awareness
amongst the public about the need to have enabling documents and the kinds of
services offered at the department of Home Affairs.

As part of our programme to contribute to the fight against poverty, we have
identified rural communities where most vulnerable groups still struggle to
access basic services.

Recently we had an opportunity to visit a San Community of the Xu! and Khwe
in the Northern Cape Province, and to provide a service for civic registration
amongst these compatriots who have never had enabling documents in their
lives.

Honourable members will recall that we made the commitment to specifically
focus on this community, who are one of the earliest inhabitants of our land,
during our budget vote in 2004. This is because, as we said at the time, our
failure to properly accord them an identity and status amounts to our denial of
their existence and recognition before the law. This is something that should
never happen if we are to build a caring society that feels discomfort at the
sight of the suffering of others.

We are honoured to have the leadership of the community as well as their
cultural entertainment group joining us as guests to this budget vote and they
are seated at the gallery of this distinguished House.

Madam Speaker,

Last year I announced the start of a Refugee Backlog Project. This was due
to the huge backlog and delays in finalising applications for asylum. We shall
publicly launch this project on World refugee day, which is on June 20. This
launch will provide me with a further opportunity to interact with refugees as
individuals and their organisations. I had found such interaction with them
last year to be very positive.

Later this year, we shall also introduce legislation to amend the current
Refugees Act with a view of ensuring better compliance with our constitutional
and international obligations. In particular, by streamlining the status
determination process we will be able to prevent future backlogs and to
facilitate the integration of genuine refugees.

Honourable members and friends,

As we have already indicated during our previous interaction with this House
that much of our weaknesses in systems require a dedicated technology solution.
I am particularly happy that we have registered considerable progress in this
regard and that this budget has made further resources available for us to
consolidate current projects.

The Back record Conversion

As planned we shall conclude the process of populating our Automated
Fingerprint Identification System this year.

The digitisation of fingerprints records is now at 70% and we can safely
report that it will be completed long before the initial schedule of September
2006. The records are an integral part of the HANIS system.

Rewrite of the National Population Register and the Movement Control
System

It had become necessary for us to have reliable National Population Register
and Movement Control System that can assure the integrity of our data. We
therefore made an undertaking that after proper investigation, the two systems
will require a rewrite.

At this stage, Madam Speaker, the Enterprise Architecture for the National
Population register and the Movement Control system was started and significant
progress has been made in this regard.

In an effort to enhance our efficiency in the management of refugee affairs,
the refugee live capture has been initiated and finalised.

Office Computerisation

Of the 263 offices identified for computerisation in the 2005/6 financial
year, 240 were completed. The department still continues to deal with the
scourge of theft of equipment and security requirements should always be
fulfilled before computer equipment can be installed in offices. This has
tended to affect the pace of installation.

In a further attempt to bring services closer to the citizens, the
department has increased the number of hospitals with access to Home Affairs
systems to a total of 119.

We have also continued to carry out our international work in support of our
foreign policy objectives and the activities of New Partnership for Africa�s
Development (NEPAD). We shall continue in this financial year to implement the
key elements of our technical assistance agreements with the Democratic
Republic of Congo where were assisting with issues pertaining to their
Population Register and immigration management capacity. A similar agreement
has also been signed with the government of Rwanda.

We have also increased the number of our consular officials in South
Africa�s missions abroad from 21 in 2004 to 42 this year and a further 10 will
be added in the coming financial year. Most of these new offices are in within
the African continent where our services were almost non-existent.

Allow me at this stage Honourable Members to outline in broad terms the key
provisions of this budget for period 2006/7 to 2008/9.

1. People

Madam Speaker,

The single most important challenge that we continue to be confronted with
is the inadequate levels of human resource capacity across the department.
Plainly put, the numbers, levels and quality of our human resource is a serious
mismatch for the cross cutting and overwhelming mandate of the department of
Home Affairs.

Over the past two years we have made a scientific investigation of our
organisational establishment and its occupational levels for different
categories of officials both at head office and in our provinces. Our new
approved establishment has grown two fold compared to 2003/04 and funding for
this establishment has been approved over a period of four years ending
2008/09.

Of importance to note has been the need to make provision for much needed
capacity within our civic services branch that was initially left out of the
first investigation of the establishment.
Additional funds requested in this regard were:

* R134m for 2006/07
* R215.6m for 2007/08
* R369.5 million for 2008/09

2. Infrastructure

Infrastructure improvement and acquisition still remains a critical area of
intervention for the department. This is in relation to the enhancement of the
building infrastructure to improve accessibility of the public to the services
of the department. As promised last year, we have now received the report of
the study we have commissioned last year in conjunction with Council for
Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) on the location of our offices. The
report will serve as a guide in the roll out of office infrastructure taking
into account the distances, population densities and the need to support urban
and rural development. Additional funds requested for these areas were:

* R212,6m for 2006/07
* R122,6m for 2007/08
* R82,6 million for 2008/09

HANIS

As already indicated in our report above, most of the programmes that form
part of the Home Affairs National Identity System are now at advanced stage or
nearing completion. These include the population of Fingerprint Identification
System (AFIS through the conversion of over 40 million fingerprints records.
The completion of this process this year will add greater benefit for the
efficiency of our systems including faster and reliable verification
process.

Cabinet is still at this stage discussing outstanding issues relating to the
procurement model for the Smart ID card and we are certain that these
discussions will be finalised soon. In this regard we have made provision for
the roll out of the process once we have the required go ahead.

Additional funds provided for the HANIS project this year are:

* R384,1m for 2006/07
* R96,1m for 2007/08
* Nil for 2008/09

Service Delivery

As already noted by the report of the HSRC that I referred to earlier, our
clients are still concerned with the quality of service they receive in most of
our offices. Due to these service delivery challenges at our provincial and
local offices, it became essential to allocate resources towards the overall
improvement in the manner in which we serve our people. Some of the initiatives
in this regard will include the allocation of further mobile units, and the
implementation of the recommendations arising from civic services survey
conducted by the HSRC. Additional resources will be allocated towards a more
efficient ID distribution strategy, queue management in our offices as well as
the running of the campaign on the rights of the client. Additional funds in
this regard are:

* R115,8m for 2006/07
* R97,16m for 2007/08
* R99,2 million for 2008/09

Counter corruption

We shall continue to enhance our capacity to fight corruption within the
department and we are greatly encouraged by the progress we have made in the
previous year. Most importantly we shall extend this capacity to our provinces
in order to improve our own ability to deal with cases more effectively
throughout all levels of the department.

What was requested in this regard as additional funds was:

* R26,8m for 2006/07
* R37,8m for 2007/08
* R34,9 million for 2008/09

Immigration Services

The passing of the new Immigration Act necessitated the fundamental
transformation of our country�s immigration service through the establishment
of the National Immigration Branch. We needed to source additional funding to
provide the world class service in this area and to ensure that the Department
is well capacitated to ensure that immigration policy and its implementation
can play a role in supporting national objectives in the areas of development,
economic growth, security and foreign policy.

We also needed to make provision for the additional capacity that will be
required to for the 2010 FIFA world cup. Additional funds requested in this
regard were:

* R62,4m for 2006/07
* R59,5m for 2007/08
* R63,4m for 2008/09

Civic services

The final policy option that was brought forward to request for additional
funds was civic services. This is our biggest branch and one whose functions
affect the lives of our own citizens. Most of the options stated above such as
HANIS, Counter Corruption, infrastructure and people are also supporting the
well functioning of civic services and therefore additional funds requested for
civic services were limited to:

* R10,1m for 2006/07
* R9,7m for 2007/08
* R9,7 for 2008/09

Madam Speaker the overall additional allocation for the department of Home
Affairs is:

* R173,1m for 2006/07
* R233,8m for 2007/08
* R781,5m for 2008/09

The allocated additional funds resulted in the increase of the baseline
budget allocation that was debated last year for the outer years to:

* R2,8 billion for 2006/07
* R3,053 billion for 2007/08
* R3,742 billion for 2008/09

Madam Speaker,

2004/05 has been the year during which the department was given a disclaimer
audit opinion by the Auditor General. This opinion had been a serious
indictment in the manner in which the finances of the department were being
managed. I am aware that parliament, through the portfolio committee is dealing
with the matter of this report.

I must indicate that at the time of the release of the Auditor General�s
report, I had sought a meeting with him to discuss his findings on the state of
finances for the department. After this interaction with the Auditor General I
am satisfied with the explanation of the circumstances that have led to his
opinion and we have accepted the report of the Auditor General. I have now
instructed the Director General, as our Accounting Officer to inform me about
the steps that he will take to address and deal with the issues raised in the
report.

Due to the serious nature of this matter, I have also requested National
Treasury to invoke Chapter 2 section 6 of the Public Finance Management Act
(PFMA), in terms of which, and I will quote:

Subsection 2(d): Treasury �may assist departments and constitutional
institutions in building their capacity for efficient, effective and
transparent financial management, and 2(e) in terms of which Treasury is
empowered to investigate any system of financial management and internal
control in any department, public entity or constitutional institution.

Both the National Treasury and ourselves will report to parliament on the
implementation of this process which will start immediately hereafter.

We remain committed to ensure that this department should be put in a
position where it can serve its mandate in a manner that support the growth of
our democracy and restore the dignity of our people.

We appreciate that, due to the nature of our work, there will always be
greater impatience and pressure on us to deliver this quality of service with
urgency. The needs of our clients are urgent and therefore we can never see
this pressure as an unjustified irritation, but as a constant reminder that
ours is a service that is about people. It for this reason that we should
listen to your own assessment of the progress we have made and to accept some
of your observations and guidance.

I thank you greatly.

Issued by: Department of Home Affairs
30 May 2006