In our weekly briefing, today Friday 23 September, Minister of Home Affairs, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma joins millions of our people across the country in national celebrations of Heritage Day scheduled for Saturday 24 September.
Ours is one nation with many cultures that must be preserved, nurtured and developed. Never in the history of our country have conditions been better for our diverse cultures, to blossom, grow and develop. ”Accordingly, all of us have to go out there to celebrate our unity in diversity. None but ourselves can ensure the survival and sustenance of our diverse cultures, the heritage of all our people,” says Minister Dlamini Zuma.
Part of this heritage of our people is to ensure that all our youths, matriculants in particular and those who are 16 years and above apply for the necessary identity documents as part of efforts to mobilise our people behind the national population registration campaign.
The issuance of ID’s to all our people is part of the strategic national objective of restoring the dignity, citizenship and identity to all South Africans irrespective of race, colour, gender or religion. It is an objective that witnessed over twenty thousand women march to the Union Building to demand an end to the hated pass laws that sort to restrict the majority of our people to the rural hinterlands of our country and regulate labour in the cities.
In memory of those stalwarts of our people, Lillian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph, Amina Cachalia and Sophie de Bruyn, we call on all our youths to take advantage of Heritage Day to acquire this common South African Identity Document, which remains a passport to a better life to which all South Africans are entitled.
In this regard and as a department we are instituting urgent measures to issue ID’s to matriculants who are registered for the forthcoming examinations by visiting various schools and communities using mobile units to reach out to our people.
Matric class of 2011 urged to apply for IDs:
Minister Dlamini Zuma takes this opportunity to call upon the matric class of 2011 to apply for their identity documents well ahead of their final examinations.
Accordingly, the department has been duly instructed to implement urgent measures to issue ID’s to matriculants who have registered for the forthcoming examinations and have applied for identity documents.This is in line with the department’s firm conviction that an ID is truly a passport to a better life especially for young people who may want to access further education and employment opportunities.
In this regard, it is crucial for the department of Home Affairs to ensure that matriculants who are registered to sit for the forthcoming examinations are empowered with identity documents that will be the key to unlocking their future aspirations.
Acting upon the instructions of Minister Dlamini Zuma, the department will leave no stone unturned to ensure that all matriculants who are registered for examination and have applied for ID’s, but have not received such documents are prioritised for issuance.
A 24-hour call centre has been established to assist matriculants registered for the 2011 examinations and have applied for identity documents.In this regard, the numbers are as follows:
- 079 519 3105
- 082 809 5307
- 082 888 8328
- 071 227 8438
Home Affairs call centre numbers may also be used:
- Using a Toll free number of the Department 0800601190 (office hours)
- Switchboard of the Department (012) 8108911(office hours)
- Sms facility (check ID status using id-id number:32551
- Departmental website: www.dha.gov.za
We take this opportunity to wish the matric class of 2011 all the best as they enter this final phase of their school careers.
Possible establishment of a Home Affairs Business Stakeholder Forum:
The business community, both national and international operating within the boundaries of the Republic remain an important stakeholder of the department of Home Affairs.In this regard, the department interacts with this community on an on-going basis with particular reference to applications for and the issuance of business and work permits.
Yet the business community is a strategic partner of government in the growth and development of our economy and the creation of job opportunities for our people in line with our five top priorities of government.Accordingly, we have to create the necessary platforms that will enable the business community to interact with the department of Home Affairs at a much more strategic level that it currently is the situation.
In pursuance of this objective, the department is currently investigating possibilities for the establishment of a Home Affairs-Business Community stakeholder forum that will create framework for a strategic engagement with our business partners.
The stakeholder forum with the business community will draw inspiration from previous experiences that the department developed during the establishment by Minister Dlamini Zuma of the Home Affairs-Community stakeholder Forum that are currently operating throughout the country and give ordinary people a voice in the running of the Home Affairs department as well as experiences gained during the tenure of the Home Affairs-Zimbabwe stakeholder forum launched to mobilise Zimbabweans to take advantage of the documentation and amnesty process that ended on 31 December 2010.
We are of the view that the possibility of the establishment of the Home Affairs-Business Community stakeholder forum will go a long way in cementing already existing good relations between the department and the business community including to assist the country in the process of recruiting critical skills from abroad to assist the country in its growth and developmental plan.Accordingly, our Immigration Section will soon begin the process of interacting with major business organisations to discuss the concept with a view to the launch of such a forum.
Home Affairs National Identification System (HANIS)
The department had previously relied on manual fingerprint identification and verification through paper records. Some of the challenges with the manual system, amongst others were:
- Poor fingerprint quality
- Ink on manual records fades after years of storage
- Paper records collect dust and poses health challenges to the officials responsible for maintaining the manual system
- Paper based records were not durable and depending on weather conditions, loses color or is damaged.
Further problems arose due to miss-classification of fingerprints resulting in duplicates resulting in a single person having multiple different ID numbers or alternatively two people sharing a single ID number. Duplicate IDs are considered unlawful in terms of the Identification Act, 1997 as amended and has resulted in the National Population Register having inaccurate and unreliable information of citizens and its integrity has been vastly compromised.
Manual fingerprints can also be easily manipulated as well as swapped between citizens.This has resulted in South Africans being the victims of identity theft which brings untold harm and misery to their lives.
To eliminate the challenges with regards to the manual fingerprint system, the department commissioned the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) during January 2000.This is a sub-system of the Home Affairs National Identification System (HANIS).
Thereafter, a Back Record Conversion project was undertaken and was successfully completed during 2008. A total of 34 million records were converted from paper to electronic format. By the end of March 2011, the AFIS had 37 million fingerprint records in storage.
However, not all fingerprints could be converted from paper to electronic format due to poor quality.To date, of the 500 000 that could not be converted, the department is still left with more than 300 000 citizens that are still not on AFIS, although these citizens have been issued with identity documents.
This poses a risk to these individuals as well as to the country and financial institutions in particular since such individuals remain exposed to the risk of fraud and corruption through identity theft.
The department will in due course make public announcement regarding measures to be undertaken to rectify the situation and to assist those affected.
Capabilities of the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS):
- AFIS can store fingerprints of citizens, permanent residents, undocumented foreigners, refugees and foreign contract workers Online as well as commercial verification can be conducted by the State and the banking industry
- Full searches of fingerprints can be conducted to identify persons without ID numbers and personal details
- The system also stores photographs of person whose records are in the database.
Some of the benefits we have enjoyed to date are:
- Prevention of identity fraud
- Provide accurate identification or verification of people
- Prevents duplication (both types of duplicates).
Online fingerprint verification can be conducted at Home Affairs offices thereby eliminating the old process of sending fingerprints for manual verification to the Central ID Production Facility. It is now possible to issue temporary documents such as Temporary Identity Certificates and Temporary Passports on demand at local offices.
We are considering the roll out of online fingerprint verification to the commercial sector (in particular banks). Due to this success we have been able to pilot online fingerprint verification with the banks through a partnership with South African Banking Risk Information Centre (SABRIC).
Live capture for passports can be performed at those Home Affairs offices with these facilities (we currently have 40 offices with this technology).
Anti-corruption crusade:
The department remains on course to push back the frontiers of fraud and corruption in line with government’s zero-tolerance position on corruption.Through the leadership of Minister Dlamini Zuma, a new Branch: Counter Corruption and Security - was established to deal with the incidents of corruption manifest in Home Affairs.
The department has also collaborated with other role-players within the Justice and Crime Prevention Cluster (JCPS) to ensure that officials found guilty of fraud and corruption within the department, also face criminal charges through criminal justice system.This is in addition to internal disciplinary processes.
Although the branch is still in its infancy, the department has begun to reap the benefits of its creation.In the first nine (9) months of 2011, 35 officials have been dismissed for involvement in corruption.Offences range from, amongst others, the fraudulent registration of births, fraudulent issuance of permits, fraudulent naturalization of citizenship, identity document fraud, bribery, fraudulent registration of deaths and assisting illegal foreigners to enter our country.
Specific incidents:
Five officials were recently arrested at our Umgeni Street office in Durban after being found in possession of various departmental documents, including amongst others, marriage registers, identity documents and death certificates, at their places of residence.
In another incident 12 officials were last month arrested at the Lebombo Port of Entry for corrupt practices while a further 11 immigration officers were arrested at OR Tambo International Airport and suspended for criminal activities. Three of these 11 cases have been finalised, resulting in the dismissal of these officials.
We have just completed training an additional 26 prosecutors in disciplinary hearings.The further training of 20 chairpersons in hearings to ensure that the department has the necessary capacity to finalise disciplinary cases within the shortest time has been scheduled for next week.
Questions and Answers:
Question: Director-General, I attended a media briefing this week during which the Deputy Minister of International Relations and Co-operation said the issue of the issuance of a visa to the Dalai Lama was something for which the Department of Home Affairs was responsible.What is the status of this application from the Dalai Lama?
Answer: (Director-General) I think the Minister has been clear on the issue of the Dalai Lama that this is not the responsible of the Department of Home Affairs but rather the responsibility of the Department of International Relations and Co-operation. Once they advise on the way forward we will act accordingly.
I’m sure you are aware that this is not the first time we are dealing with this matter.In the previous instance, Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma as the Minister of Home Affairs dealt with this matter.It has not changed although the Minister is now the Minister of Home Affairs.
Question: Director-General, you said there are 300 000 citizens who are not on HANIS, when will they be put on the system?
Question: Director-General, how will these 300 000 citizens be notified, through newspapers?
Answer: (Director-General) We are trying to inform citizens about this , we usually realise there is a problem when someone goes to our offices to apply for a passport and we realise these are not in our system.
But on the issue of publishing, we need to be sure we do not create another element for corruption ie. people will now know this citizen, this ID number, does not have fingerprints on the system.This is why we need to work on it, once we are clear on this we will proceed.
But for now we want to inform our citizens that if for some reason you are not able to receive your temporary ID immediately, it may be due to this.
We are looking at the best options to insert this information on the system.Or perhaps we can ask people to go to Home Affairs offices to check if their fingerprints are on the system.
Question: Director-General, on the issue of the arrests of 35 officials, can I please get the dates, are we expecting this number to increase.What does finalise refer to, finalisation within the department or through the criminal justice system?
Answer: (Director-General) When we talk of finalising the process, we are talking of our own internal processes because we do not have any control over the criminal justice processes. But in terms of internal systems, once we have identified something, you are suspended immediately and we follow our own disciplinary processes.
(Director Labour Relations, Ronald Oppelt) On the issue of dates, this refers to the first nine months of 2011, January, September 2011.
Question: Director-General, with regard to the 300 000 people, what happens when you want to apply for a passport and you are not on the system?
Answer: (Director-General) If you are not on the system, you cannot be assisted with the document you are applying for.But we take your fingerprints on the spot and we are able to process these for inclusion on the HANIS system.
Question: Director-General, I would like to know of the issue of work permits for Zimbabweans.We still hear of reports where people are being forced to pay bribes for the issuance of these permits.Did you have to deal with any corruption within this project?
Answer: (Director-General) This is what we are referring to when we talk about fraud within the department, fraud with regard to birth certificates, permits, etc. We do not tolerate any form of fraud and corruption.On the Zimbabwe project, we have always said that these permits, including the application forms, were free of charge.
We cannot however control our people or the Zimbabweans themselves.
These permits are free of charge.
It is our responsibility to issue IDs, etc to citizens.There is no need to bribe anyone to issue these documents to you.And when we pick up such instances, we are arresting the perpetrators.
With the Zimbabwean project particular, we implemented a system, that once the application was submitted, an sms is issued.This is similar to the processes of ID and passport application. Once the permits, documents, etc. are issued, you receive an sms saying your documents have been issued.The back and front office functions have therefore been separated.
Question: Director-General, how would I confirm whether I am on the HANIS system?
Answer: (Director-General) You will recall I have said we are working on how to announce this matter so that people can verify if they are on the system.We are still working on this and once we are ready, we will announce accordingly.
Enquiries:
Ronnie Mamoepa
Cell: 082 990 4853
ronnie.mamoepa@dha.gov.za
