Minister of Home Affairs, Naledi Pandor will tomorrow, Tuesday 1 January 2013 lead the Department’s campaign for the registration of New Year’s Day child births at the Bonteheuwel Maternity Clinic in Cape Town.
Minister Pandor will be supported by Home Affairs Deputy Minister Fatima Chohan, who will also embark on the registration of newly born-babies at the Charlotte Maxeke and Rahima Moosa hospitals in Parktown, Johannesburg and Carletonville, Gauteng respectively.
This year’s campaign is sponsored by Pampers which will help provide gifts for those mothers who would have given birth on New Year’s Day in the wards that both the Minister and Deputy Minister will visit.
The effort to register child births comes within the context of the ongoing National Population Registration Campaign launched by President Jacob Zuma to consolidate a secure, accurate and credible national population register with a single point of entry at birth.
In this regard, the National Population Registration Campaign is aimed at:
- The registration of all child births within 30 days of delivery
- Mobilisation of youths of 15 years and above to apply for ID’s
- And to end the practice of late registration of births.
In pursuance of the objectives of this campaign, the Department of Home Affairs has embarked on a massive effort to ensure connectivity of about 300 hospitals, clinics and health-care centres at this stage, across the country to the Home Affairs systems enable the registration of child births before parents leave the maternity centres. In those hospitals, clinics and health-care centres which are still to be connected to the department’s systems, Home Affairs officials are deployed to regularly collect completed child registration forms for their entry into the National Population Register.
These efforts including the utilisation of Home Affairs-Community stakeholder forums have added impetus to the increased awareness among the populace on the significance of child-registration as provided for, by the law.
A secure National Population Register complimented by the national census will enable government to plan adequately based on the demographics of the population, their location and gender. This is done in order to allocate national resources accordingly and in line with our developmental plan.
Media is invited as follows:
Cape Town: Minister Naledi Pandor
Date: Tuesday, 1 January 2013
Time: 08h00
Venue: Bonteheuwel Maternity Clinic, Cape Town
Gauteng: Deputy Minister Fatima Chohan
Date: Tuesday, 1 January 2013
Venue: Charlotte Maxeke, 16 Jubilee Road, ParkTown
Time: 10h30
Venue: Rahima Moosa, Corner Fuel and Oudtshoorn Street, Coronationville
Time: 12h00
For more information contact:
Lunga (for the Minister)
Cell: 082 566 0446
Zandi (for the Deputy Minister)
Cell: 071 602 2734
