Comments by Chairperson of the Independent Electoral Commission Dr Brigalia Bam
Good morning and welcome to you Minister.
For those of you who may not be very familiar with the way in which we work, every South African who is entered onto the country’s voters roll, must by law hold a green bar-coded ID book. Without an ID we cannot register anyone on our voters roll. Each of the 23.6 million South Africans registered for this year’s elections holds a green bar coded ID book.
The second one is the process following which we have registered people throughout the country – we then verify the status of each citizen with the Department of Home Affairs to ensure they are South African. This is important.
On a monthly basis, the department sends to us the names of persons who have passed on so we can remove them from the voters roll.
Most important of all these processes is that we need to have a budget to do the work we do here. The Minister then interrogates our budget with us but then presents our budget to Parliament. This is very important to us as the Independent Electoral Commission. We are accountable to Parliament through the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs.
We thought we should just take you through this. The Minister is therefore very special to us. We also however co-operate with other Ministries. We cannot work without the support of other government departments.
You are very welcome Minister.
Comments by Home Affairs Minister Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma
Well, thank you very much.Thank you to Dr Bam for welcoming me and to the Commission.
I am very happy to be here this morning after the elections which took place yesterday. These have gone very well. We are indeed strengthening the democracy in this country and we really appreciate the work of the IEC and all the staff to ensure we could hold these Local Government Elections successfully. We are now awaiting the results which, as you know, are coming through. We are very happy with this.
Of course, we support the IEC in the ways described by Dr Bam.
We had also taken a decision this year that we will open our offices for the same hours as those of the IEC during the two voter registration weekends earlier this year. We also decided to use yesterday as a normal working day rather than a holiday. And we were working yesterday for the same hours as the IEC and indeed we were able to render services to those who came to apply for their IDs and other services.
Surprising some people came to collect their IDs yesterday. About 20 765 IDs were collected yesterday countrywide. These voters would not have been able to vote had they not collected their IDs. More than 3 000 South Africans also require temporary identity certificates because we have agreed with the IEC that they would recognise temporary identity certificates (TICs) as well. Therefore people come to our offices and once we have verified they are on our national population register, we issue them with TICs to go and vote. We were able to assist in this way.
We are very happy we were able to cooperate so well. However other government departments have also supported these elections, for instance, the security of the elections.
We are very happy and we hope the political parties will also be happy with their results. The results will reflect the amount of work that has been done and the confidence of the electorate. The political parties will reap what they have sown. So, we are very happy.
Questions and answers
Question: Minister, did the staff at Home Affairs have an opportunity to vote?
Answer: We had had a meeting and decided a while ago that we should be able to apply for special votes but where there were big teams they should take turns to vote. At a management level, we were all able to vote because we took turns. However, at the level of officials, I cannot guarantee that all voted, however, no one was denied the opportunity to vote.
As you saw, I applied for a special vote and I voted on Monday because of the decision we had taken. So all who wanted to vote were able to vote.
Question: Minister, what was the most interesting excuse you have received for a lost ID?I believe TICs have now been delinked from the ID applications – can you please elaborate?
Answer: (Minister Dlamini Zuma) Sometimes people say they had their IDs yesterday but when they looked for it today they could not find it when they wanted to go to vote. Sometimes people panic when they have to go to vote and they do not look for their IDs properly.
This is precisely the reason that we have delinked the processes.
Sometimes people do say that they had just misplaced their IDs, not lost them. So they know their IDs are there but not exactly where.
So we felt that instead of people having to apply for IDs when they were not sure where they were, it is better for them to obtain a TIC which is valid for about two months and they have time to look for their IDs. But those who think they have really lost their IDs are able to apply for them simultaneously with their applications for a TIC.
Question: Minister, you have been leading the charge to ensure that South Africans take their IDs more seriously. Does the issuing of TICs so easily not compromise this message?
Answer: This is double edged sword because it is a requirement for people to have IDs. So you cannot deny someone an ID when they have misplaced or lost their IDs. It is also the right of all South Africans to vote. And an ID is required to cast your vote. We therefore feel it is correct to issue TICs to enable them to exercise their right to vote. It is also not just a right but a responsibility for people to vote.
We therefore feel that Home Affairs should not be a stumbling block for people to enable them to exercise this right and responsibility.
Question: Minister, in which areas of the country were the highest number of IDs collected?
Answer: The highest collection of IDs was in Limpopo with 4 125 collected; the next was in Gauteng with 3 569; the Eastern Cape with 3532.The least was in the Northern Cape because they have a smaller population.
Question: Minister, how many incidents of fraudulent IDs have you come across, particularly as it relates to voting?
Answer: (Minister Dlamini Zuma) On the question of fraud, before we issue you with a TIC, we first verify your fingerprints and that you are on our database. We then issue you with a TIC. If we cannot verify you are on our National Population Register, we do not issue you with a TIC.
I’m not sure if the IEC found any cases of fraudulent IDs, but we only issue IDs to those who are on our population register.
(Dr Bam) We virtually have any instances of fraudulent ID registrations in this country these days. When we conducted our first elections in 1994 we did have instances of such fraudulent IDs. But we verified these with Home Affairs as I always do so there is no way this can happen now. We check each and every ID after a person is registered to verify this is a genuine South African citizen. So, we do not have these instances any longer.
Question: Minister, do you have instances where (inaudible)?
Answer: In terms of the people who were turned away – earlier we had received reports that some people did not have enough money to apply for TICs together with applications for new IDs. This is usually the practice because you must have a permanent ID.
We then decided that for the purposes of voting, we would delink the processes of applying for a temporary ID and a permanent one. We then had to bring this to the attention of the public through the media.
Question: Minister, how many TICs were issued yesterday to enable people to vote?
Answer: Well as I said, 20 765 IDs were collected nationally yesterday. And 3 318 temporary identity certificates were issued to enable people to vote. So these were the figures for those who came to us yesterday to collect documents to vote.
