Honourable Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces Mninwa Mahlangu
Honourable Chairperson of the Select Committee on Social Services Rachel Nomonde Rasmeni
Honourable members of the National Council of Provinces
Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Fatima Chohan
Chairperson of the Independent Electoral Commission Advocate Pansy Tlakula
Chairperson of the Films and Publications Board Thoko Mpumlwana
CEO of the Government Printing Works Dr Tony Mbewu
Fellow South Africans.
Sanibonani
Molo
Dumelang
Abhusheni
Middag
Good afternoon.
This month marks the 36th anniversary of the 1976 June 16th uprising in which the young lions of our country rose against apartheid colonialism in all its manifestations. Some paid the supreme price for peace, freedom and democracy. Accordingly, we pay homage to Hector Peterson and other young lions who died and whose blood nourished our tree of freedom.
Our youth today, however, face different challenges as highlighted in the African Economic Outlook 2012 as presenting "a significant risk and threat to social cohesion and political stability if Africa fails to create sufficient economic and employment opportunities to support decent living conditions for this group."
Honourable chairperson
We have intensified our efforts to protect the integrity of our National Population Register through a campaign aimed at ensuring the registration of all child births within 30 days of delivery, youths of 16 years of age and above acquire IDs, and bringing an end to the culture of the late registration of birth.
Early registration of child birth
Since the launch of the National Population Registration Campaign (NPR) in 2010/11, children registered within 30 days have increased from 445 853 to 556 762 in 2011/12, just over 50% of all births. While this is a welcome development, we wish to remind the House, that failure to register children within 30 days of delivery, is to break the law. The National Council of Provinces (NCOP) should assist us to get all South Africans to understand and abide by the law.
Early registration of birth will ensure that government is able to extend services to children, including social grants, where applicable while helping to prevent fraudulent registration of child births through such schemes as "rent a baby".
Hospital connectivity
Since the launch of the National Population Registration Campaign, the department has now connected a total of 264 hospitals, clinics and health care facilities to its systems. We will this year, connect a further 80 hospitals for online birth registration. Eighty-eight (88) hospitals and other health care centres are visited regularly by our officials for collection of registration forms.
Late registration of birth
Honourable members, we have witnessed a dramatic decrease in the late registration of persons of 15 years and above, from 354 588 in 2009/10 to 110 902 in the 2011/12 year, thus reducing the risk of fraudulent acquisition of citizenship while the protecting the NPR. New regulations with penalties aimed at curbing against late registration will be introduced this year. We call on honourable members of the NCOP to support this initiative.
First issues of IDs, ID reissues and Duplicate ID's
As an expression of our commitment to fulfill our constitutional mandate to provide enabling documents to all our people, we issued a total of 1 199 467 IDs to first time recipients in the 2011/12 financial year. This is a significant increase compared with the 834 353 issued in 2009/10.
With the number of applications for the re-issue of IDs and late registration of birth, steadily decreasing, it is evident that South Africans are beginning to value their enabling documents. In this regard, in the 2011/12 year, we reissued 1 075 994 IDs, which is 5% fewer when compared with the 1 125 141, issued in 2010/11.
We remain committed to dealing decisively with the scourge of duplicate IDs to ensure that those affected can together with the rest of our people of our country enjoy the benefits of a better life for all. The most serious category of duplicates is where more than one person shares the same ID number. The duplicate IDs where two people share an ID number is still a challenge. We are doing our best to reduce them.
In this regard we have resolved 6 335 cases from January to May 2012. The breakdown is as follows:
- January: 865
- February: 911
- March: 961
- April: 1771
- May: 1827
Increased rural footprint
The department has prioritised the extension of our rural footprint. We are pleased to announce that in the 2011/12 financial year four new offices were opened, three of which are in rural areas and eight new offices have been earmarked for opening this year. Similarly, 14 offices were refurbished in 2011/12 in rural areas while a further 15 will be refurbished this year.
The launch of the new Smart ID Card pilot is indeed a culmination of years of struggle against humiliation, denial of citizenship and identity of the majority by successive racist regimes. This is a key element in our endeavours aimed at modernisation of departmental systems. We hope to roll out to the Smart ID card to the majority within 18 months.
Honourable members
We are doing everything to deal with challenges relating to permitting, asylum seekers, and improving the efficiency and security of key ports of entry. Once again we call on honourable members to help us address the serious challenge of fraudulent marriages as well as marriages of convenience. This allows foreigners to fraudulently acquire the right to stay in South Africa by entering into corrupt relationships with our citizens.
In conclusion, may we express our gratitude to the Chairperson of the Select Committee Rachel Rasmeni and members of the Committee for their support and oversight during the year.
Similarly we extend our profound appreciation to the President and Deputy President for their guidance and leadership and cabinet colleagues for their support. We express our hope that this budget will meet with your favourable support.
I thank you.
