Thank you very much and thank you to all the people who are here from Home Affairs. We are here, as you know, as part of my orientation because I am new and I promised I would visit all the provinces first. After that I will visit regional offices. This is the first time I am visiting the Free State, this is my first official visit. After my official visit I will visit any office without being announced although I am obliged to announce my first visit. I am briefed by staff and my visit is supported by many people. I feel I can visit any office after this briefing.
Let me give you my impressions of when I arrived: as you know there was a choir that was singing and I liked the message contained within their song they were saying they want to change Home Affairs and I assumed they want to change it for the better. Once the members of Home Affairs internalise that we have to change Home Affairs for the better, we are on our way because Ministers cannot change things, it is the team that can bring change. So, I am very happy if the team believes they can change Home Affairs for the better because a Minister is only as good as his or her team so if I have a good team, we will have a good department. This is the first thing.
Secondly, there is a good look and feel about the office which is important for the public. When they enter an office they must feel this is a government office, an office that is the custodian of all their legal documents from cradle to grave and I think you have confidence when you walk into an office with a good look and feel. Of course, how well the office works? I am informed the office works well and I hope it does. I did not receive many complaints from members of the public who are here. There is one area that I think I will take to Head Office so we can consider how to improve this service this service is one of citizenship. We will see how to assist in this matter.
The other matter is that there are lots of passports that are not collected because we decided at Head Office that we would deal with the backlog and finish it. Offices are now receiving their passports and this is the reason for the backlog of collections. This is not such a bad thing because it shows that the commitment from Head Office to deal with the backlog and expedite the processing of passports is happening.
I must say, with those few remarks, I am still to receive comments from the staff regarding their inputs, challenges and problems including how they deal with these. This will happen after this briefing.
I will end there.
Questions and answers:
Question: Minister, would it be possible for all employees, especially client service officers to be acquainted with what it is you aim to do in the department?
Answer: Let me say, the first thing that is now compulsory is that every person in the office in Home Affairs must wear a name tag. I think this is very important. People think it is just a name tag but when one can be identified people begin to be people. They begin to be Vusi Mkhize and not just Home Affairs so when he is about to do something he is aware that it is Vusi Mkhize who is about to do something and not just Home Affairs. So, I think once you are identified your attitude should change because you know people can identify who rendered the service; actions will not be attributed just to Home Affairs.
The public must be aware of this and the public must inform us if there are offices where people do not wear name tags. If members of the public encounter staff in Home Affairs offices who are not wearing name tags it should be reported to us so that we are aware of which offices are complying and which are not. And of course, if something happens, soon we will be issuing a certain number to which you can phone, sms or e-mail so that we can be informed of what is happening at Home Affairs offices. If good things are happening, we also want to know, but equally we want to know if bad things are happening.
So, we would like the public to work with us to make Home Affairs offices better. So, if someone wants you to pay for something you should not be paying for please call and let us know. We will not even want people to be identified. But we would like to be informed of the official who has done this and the office the official belongs to. We will send people to investigate because I am convinced that if the public works with us we can really make Home Affairs the best department. So, name tags are the first thing that is compulsory.
And of course, I think it has already begun but we will continue with workshops for people both in the front line offices but also for managers to manage to ensure things are running smoothly in their offices. This is very important and will be done.
But I think the name tags are also very important because if you want to do something wrong, you will think twice because you can be easily identified.
Question Minister, would you consider this a model Home Affairs office?
Answer: I think this is a good office. Obviously I believe managers should be competing with each other to make their offices better than the others. However, while this is a good office, it is not perfect because as you saw, there was no signage indicating which counter is for which. This still has to be done.
Question: Minister, one of the staff members mentioned they have to deal with a lot of paper work on a daily basis she was asking whether it would be possible to capture data in a more expeditious way.
Answer: It is very clear that Home Affairs does need to ensure we can capture data electronically. We have started rendering some services in this way for instance, the new passport applications are being captured online. We are going to implement online applications for identity documents.
Of course, we will eventually be rendering all services online. Of course with the global economic situation we may not be able to move as fast as we would like but we will be moving to greater online services. We would eventually want to move towards becoming a paperless department. This is our ultimate objective.
Question: Minister, we publish on daily basis stories of people who have been waiting for IDs and people who want to apply for residential permits who have to wait for longer than the required six weeks. Minister, is there slow delivery in the department or are their officials who are not informed of the nature of services they should be delivering?
Answer: The best thing you can do for us as a department and the people about whom you are writing is to send those stories to us. If we know the offices you are referring to, we will expedite the delivery of services but we will also be able to follow up and track the situation to identify exactly where the problem was. So, besides selling your newspaper and increasing your readership because of the stories you are publishing, please assist the people by bringing these stories to our attention because we would like to clean up this department. We would like to assist people resolve their challenges as quickly as possible. So, if you are going to publish stories every week, then please send the same to us so we can expedite the delivery.
It is clear that yes, people do not work as efficiently as they should but also, as one of the officials said, if you are still dealing with paper, paper sometimes gets lost. But, what we would like to, if someone was informed that they would receive their documents in three months and if the matter is not finalised in three months, I invite these people and yourself to bring this matter to our attention at Head Office and we will try and deal with this. This will assist us in two ways to improve service delivery to the people and also to check where bottlenecks in the system are.
Question Minister, do you believe that the new passports will be sufficient to convince other countries of the authenticity of the documentation being carried by South African citizens? Besides the immigration problem, what other problems have you encountered in other provincial offices?
Answer: The passport itself is now perfect; it is a state of the art passport with every security feature imaginable. But it needs to be captured online this means that the applicant must apply in person, fill in the forms, have their photo taken online, have their signature processed online so that we begin to ensure that people do not send others to do their applications or send photos of other people. We have not been able to roll this out to all offices. It is being piloted in this office. We hope that after a month all passports will be processed in this way to avoid tampering.
We also need to look at our base document which is the birth certificate. We need to register children early. Our ultimate objective is to ensure every child is registered at birth. The worst case scenario is one where a child is registered before its first birthday. In that way, you are able to control who goes into your population register because your birth certificate is the base document that allows you an ID, a passport.
So, if we can tighten up at this level, we will indeed be able to re-establish the integrity of our passports and IDs. So, this is why we will shortly be launching a campaign that will continue until 2011 where every child without a birth certificate will be registered (from 0 to 14 years) so that they are captured in the population register before they apply for an ID document. It is very important to de-link the two processes. At the same time, we will be running a campaign of proactively issuing IDs at 16 so that we eventually do away with late registration of births because this is where problems arise. I will not be able to say from one adult to the next who is South African and this where the problems begin. It is important to get our birth registration in place.
And of course, we have already started cleaning up our population register, ensuring that people, who should not be there, or about whom we are suspicious, are removed until we have properly verified their status and nationality. We hope that when we introduce the smart card we will also be able to clean up our population register because everyone will have to be captured and registered online.
So yes, we have a multi-pronged approach to restoring the integrity of our documents. It cannot be just a single track approach. Regarding the problems, there are lots of problems some of the offices do not look as good as this one. It is not always a problem that can be attributed to Home Affairs because we receive our accommodation from Public Works. What is important is that whatever office we receive, we organise in a way to ensure the smooth running and efficient flow of service delivery for clients. There are still problems with this.
In some instances there are problems just with regard to how people are channelled into queues. There are no floor managers who assist to ensure a smooth flow of people. Of course the signage is meant to assist. There are various problems, sometimes forms are not filled in correctly and people have to come back. There are lots of problems but on the whole, the first thing we have to change is the attitude of the employees. This is changing in some instances but once the public begins to work with us attitudes will really begin to change. And once attitudes begin to change the rest will quickly follow.
Question Minister, you asked the employees about their jobs what is your view of their responses?
Answer: I think they are aware of what it is they should be doing but I think they can still improve. For instance, if I arrive as a member of the public and say I want to apply for an ID, it is important for them to explain to me what documentation and requirements I need to have (of course we are hoping photos will be discarded). What is important is for everyone to understand what the person needs so that people do not have to come twice or thrice. It is important that I receive the necessary service and information on my first visit so that I can return with all that is necessary.
This is important because you find that in some offices people inform me that they are now returning to the office for the fifth or sixth time for the same reason. Of course, I did not find this here. I think communication and knowledge is very important but the client is supposed to receive the necessary information. I have found conditions to be favourable but improvement can be made.
This can be rectified through good management. At Head Office we are going to compile little booklets with all the relevant information. I think there should also be information posters on the walls. Training will be ongoing. But, I must say that this is the best office of those I have visited.
Enquiries:
Ronnie Mamoepa
Cell: 082 990 4853
Issued by: Department of Home Affairs
20 July 2009
Source: Department of Home Affairs (http://www.dha.gov.za)
