Panel: Richard Baloyi, Minister of Public Service and Administration, Sicelo Shiceka, Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs
Introduction
Thank you very much and thank you ladies and gentleman of the media. This briefing really is a cluster hearing and as you know the government has decided to have a few priorities and to really concentrate on those priorities. The priorities for this cluster is the local government and the outcome that we would like to see from that cluster is a responsible and effective government system and therefore whatever that cluster does in terms of that priority is to support that outcome.
In our briefing we will not be talking of everything that we will be doing in our individual department that you will get when we do our budget vote. But today we will be talking mainly about those things that will support this outcome of a responsive, accountable and effective government.
In Home Affairs we will be ensuring that citizens have all the documents they need to access the service, whether they service national, provincial but mainly local government services. We will ensure that in the coming local government election, people who need to have identity documents (IDs) do have IDs, because part of the responsiveness of the local government means people must have all the necessary things in order to access what’s going on and in terms of public services.
In talking more about anti-corruption we need to have a clean government. The anti-corruption, the Cadre Development, Public Service development we will also be speaking to that because you can’t have an outcome that you wish to have unless you have cadres in the public service that can deliver that service.
In dealing with e-government it also comprises of making a service, particularly local government, accessible to the people.
Questions and answers
Journalist:If you could just give us a breakdown at national, provincial and local government level. What is the vacancy rate in the state and if you could just indicate the levels of seniority on those posts and the impact it’s having on your ability to deliver.
Minister Richard Baloyi: The issue about vacancies in Public Service arise when a Department has an approved organisational structure that reflects funded vacancies that are not filled. If you look at figures you might arrive at different levels as it depends on what the source of that information is (PERSAL). The level of vacancy is at a particular point, for instance the Public Service Commission conducts surveys with reports that indicate our vacancy rate at a given point.
When you have a vacancy that is not filled the impact is that you have a resource that is not available. If it’s 10% of your establishment it means you are 10% not ready in terms of human resources capacity. When you fill a vacancy there are quite a lot of factors that your to consider. I spoke about the availability of funding for that particular vacancy but it’s not acceptable for Departments to have unfilled vacancies for along time, as this compromises their achievements.
The message in this year of action, in being true to our commitment to provide support to the delivery of services faster, vacancies must be filled in a period of not less than two months.
Journalist: I wondered if you could give us a rundown on the identity documents, the new machine readable identity books. What is the latest situation on those that is certainly something that will improve delivery in Local Government?
Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma: I’m not sure what you are talking about, we don’t have machine readable ID books? Whose machine reads them?
Journalist: The credit card type IDs, smartcards?
Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma: The smartcard identity book was halted because when treasury gave the money to develop the smartcard the Department had to go to SITA to run with the tender and SITA didn’t do as it was suppose to do and the board of SITA stopped that tender because there were irregularities.
Having stopped the tender the money went back to treasury and with the recession and all the problems we have the money was then used for other things. I communicated earlier we are still in discussion to see whether this tender can be done differently. In our Budget we don’t have the money for the smartcard but once we have established an alternative we will try to put in a bid in the next Budget. Thanks.
Journalist: My first question is more of a curiosity with regards to PERSAL. There are some workshops that will be held for officials. Isn’t PERSAL like ancient already? Shouldn’t people know how to use the system?
Then I have a question to Minister Shiceka, there are 283 municipalities, you just finished the first phase where you visited the two worst off municipalities in each province. That leaves us with 18 that should also be getting attention of the 283 that is very little. In the Free State there is about seven municipalities under central intervention, you know 18 is not that much.
Then there was something I was concerned about that the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) doesn’t have the power to force departments to adhere to provisions that relate to people being suspended. Surely that is a problem for Local Government, if we have people being suspended and they are suspended often times for 12 to 18 months and we pay their salaries. Isn’t there some way by using the labour legislation and the Public Service Act to try and enforce municipalities and provincial legislatures and Local Government to actually have an impact here to say you need to finalise these disciplinary hearings within a set amount of time. Thank you.
Minister Richard Baloyi: It should be time that we say that people who are using the system are familiar with it but you see PERSAL data quality is an issue. That is why PERSAL clean up is the way to go and the workshops that you refer to are actually meant to deal with that issue. Continued enhancement of people’s competencies to be able to utilise this system is important.
We are dealing with the issue of discipline management that is why one of our priorities is to revisit the legislation and the practices that deals with issues related to discipline management. We are then saying if a person is to be suspended or have committed a misconduct within a period of a month the Department is then in a position to determine the severity of a case and to determine whether a suspension shall be accompanied with fully pay and it should not be open ended, it must be managed within in a given period of time. People being suspended with full pay doesn’t actually impose a responsibility on both the side of the Department and the person who has been suspended to move with speed towards the finalisation of the case that is why we are saying we are doing things differently this year.
It is not natural that a Department of Public Service should have no power, it is a question of tradition, born out of an understanding of the situation that we actually have to do differently now. So that is exactly what we are doing, we will be unleashing a programme as the Minister has indicated when we debate we will be talking to the nation, talking to public servants for them to know that the issues of disciplined management is an issue that we must actually add speed to dealing with that, that is doing things differently.
Journalist: You speak in the statement about exploring the possibility of setting up a disciplinary unit to assist Departments in difficult and high profile disciplinary cases, can you please elaborate on that. And also just tell me what you see as a high profile disciplinary case?
Journalist: I also would like to understand what is a progressive discipline, it’s on page 5 in the statement that we have.
Journalist: Minister I understand your explanation about not wanting to give the numbers on the vacancy rate but in terms when we come back here next year to assess your Department’s progress you have the numbers available why not give it to us.
Minister Richard Baloyi: It’s not a question about not wanting to give the numbers; the nature of this engagement is one on one I think you will be surprised if I can talk numbers and numbers just like that. It’s not that we are not willing to give; the numbers are there we will give detailed breakdown in terms of that, it’s not a secret, we have nothing to hide in as far as that is concern. That’s why I said let’s talk about the issues, the impact of the high vacancy rates.
The issue of progressive discipline referred to in the document is a situation where you apply a restorative discipline instead of punitive. So that on the one hand you are going to look at what remedial action you can address on this. But on the other hand if discipline is to be balanced you can’t avoid a situation where you talk about the punitive action being taken about that. You then say in terms of our systems in terms of how we deal with, if you want to give an opportunity in the process of people mending their attitudes and their actions and responding to what it takes to be credible public servants. But on the extreme you definitely have to make sure that at some stage you will then say the door that you used to come into the public service may you use it quickly out of the public service.
High profile cases, where talking about cases of embezzlement of funds, corruption, we are talking about system violations, those are actually high profile cases talking about the issues of fraud and the like. That’s why we are then saying within the 1 month we need to determine the severity. We must then be able to go the route say in some cases of suspending without pay; those are things we are talking about.
We insist as DPSA to then say there has to be compliance with the policies that we set ourselves. Firstly let me indicate that all cases of misconduct will have to be reported. We have to know that in Department A or Department B there is a case of misconduct going on so that we trace that to then say how far you are? You need to actually deal with these issues and make sure that we finalise cases in time. That’s a priority in terms of what we do. We are going to link that with the issues on ethics management. We are creating an ethics committee within DPSA, based on a policy each Department then needs to have ethics offices. We record the unethical conduct that may sometimes be to the degree of constituting a misconduct or corruption themselves. The issues are then dealt with speedily.
Journalist: I just want to find out are you factoring in trade unions because you have a highly unionised public service. How are you factoring trade unions in these negotiations around trying to clean up the institution?
And then beefing up of you own Department to get compliance in difference Departments, are you not just packing your Department with more bureaucrat, is the idea not suppose to be to enable the Departments where the problems are to get their systems going to actually ensure that they expedite process. Shouldn’t you beef up their HR capacity, their ability to do conflict resolution or to detect these problems. Are you not just packing your Department and shouldn’t the intervention be in the individual Departments rather than at the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA)?
Minister Richard Baloyi: You are right; we are not centralising everything at the Department. We are then saying through our capacity building intervention, through our HR development intervention as part of the responsibilities that we have to empower all Departments. But the Department of Public Service and Administration has got no rule. It’s like there is no central eye that says on this policy that we have to do 1 2 3, lets address these issue.
As to whether we are taking on board trade unions. We are definitely doing exactly that. Late last year we had a summit as the employer with labour organisations. At that summit we took a decision committing ourselves towards building a new cadre of public service that will actually uphold the basic attributes that will then define a public servant to be a public servant of note. To be clear of issues of discipline and to conduct themselves within expectations. So we actually have constant engagement, we will soon be having a public service summit dealing with these issues tackling even difficult questions. Because you see a unionised environment is actually not a hostile environment to clean governance. It’s just takes managers who are actually equal to understand what trade unionism actually entails. And also on the part of trade unions themselves to play a roll of making sure that we achieve the clean efficient, effective Government status even in a unionised environment.
Minister Sicelo Shiceka: I also must add my voice in greeting you this morning. You’ve raised a question that there are too few municipalities that we connected in a pilot report. I think you will recall that on the 2nd of December the Cabinet approved Local Government turnaround strategy as a national framework as a road map that must be followed by all in sundries in South Africa to ensure that municipalities are doing what the Minister said being responsive and being efficient and effective and accountable.
In January / February we took two municipalities per province that are worst off so that we can learn from that lesson on what to do going forward. From the pilots we are moving between now and April to engage all municipalities across the country. The intension of doing that is to develop a specific municipality turnaround strategy and implementation plan because we recognise that we can’t have a one size fits all because the conditions in each and every municipality are different.
Between April and June we will be approving the budget of the municipalities. As you know the budget of municipalities are implemented on the 1st of July. It means that this budget will be based on the turnaround strategy that will be implemented in July. We have also gone to Provincial Government Departments, national Government Departments and state own enterprises to say whatever projects that is implementing in municipalities must be based on the integrated development plans. It means that the turnaround is real and we are saying the people must be engage all sectors of society We have discovered that over 280 ratepayers in South Africa which unfortunately are white organisations, created a parallel Government where they take the money instead of paying service to municipality they put it in a trust account. It means that they undermine the ability of the municipality to deliver services. Now we are dealing with that by engaging because we say everyone must come to the party. If you unhappy about pot holes, lack of service delivery, lets discuss that, that’s what the municipal specific turnaround time is all about.
The other issue that has been raised is violent protests, we have discovered that these protests all of them without exception they happen because the people have been raising things with municipalities without getting response and the anger has been boiling up. We are developing a mechanism of dealing with all the issues that have been raised with municipalities.
We have a mini workshop tomorrow where we are meeting with colleagues in provinces and local government leaders to discuss that. To ensure that we are able to handle protests and are responsive whilst we are dealing with the long term support of municipalities.
The last point I want to talk about is an issue of the DC - a bill will be presented - the municipal system act - as we have amended we are presenting to the cabinet in March. That bill is aimed at ensuring that skilled people are employed. If the counsel employs unskilled people, the MEC must intervene within a prescribed period. If the MEC does not intervene the national Minister must intervene within a prescribed period to reverse that. If that situation is addressed, we then move to the issue of suspension and firing, because there have been indiscriminate firing and suspension particularly in at a senior management level. We are saying then we want to ensure that there’s stability Cadre of leadership in a municipality. Suspensions and firings must be reported the province which must in turn report to at a national level.
The last point that we are dealing with was raised by the president in the January 8 statement. It’s where employees at a level of managers are office bearers of political parties; we are drafting a Bill to deal with that and we presented it to COSATU, who expressed concern. We are presenting it to Cabinet this month to ensure that we deal with all the issues raised.
Journalist: Just a follow up you refer to rate payers association that undermine municipality the ability to deliver service, given that and the proliferation of violent protests we seen across the country. Would you agree that a lot of people are just sick and tired of the lack of service delivery and that they don’t trust Government to deliver the service even though Government says it will be given we see township and suburbs overflow by sewerage and potholes not being fixed.
Journalist: I just want to find out from this cluster whether you are considering any measures to determine the phenomenon of Civil Service doing business with the states link to what you talking about anti corruption dealing with suspension?
Journalist: The other dimension to the protests and violent protests has been identified as political infighting. Two issues have arise what can you do to stop and secondly would any measures that you take not be so unpopular that the municipal election next year would be problematic?
Journalist: Regarding a political infighting, I see one of the proposals in the turnaround strategy is to have a single election for national Provincial and Local Government at the same time. This will be a huge big change, what is the status of this proposal is there going to be debate about it and what do you personally think the benefit will be for local communities?
Minister Sicelo Shiceka: There is a high degree of unhappiness about the quality and the quantity of services delivered at a Local Government level. That is why there is what is called Local Government Turnaround Strategy we are saying even the white ratepayers associations who are protesting silently by taking their money to the trust accounts they must come to the party and let’s find solutions all of us. That is the core of our message when we say that Local Government is everybody’s business and equally those that are protesting violently we are saying let’s engage on that. That is why I’m saying we will be presenting a plan on how to curb these violent protests when we meet with the MEC’s and Local Government leaders so that we are able to do deal with this this because it undermines the programme we are involved in, in supporting municipalities and moving forward because of the protest.
On the issue of political infighting, we find that in most areas, if not all the conditions are not to good. People are raising genuine issues but they must not use violence means to be able to attract attention on the issues. Therefore from our point of view peaceful means must be sought to address our plan that by 2014 we would like to see a situation where there are no violent protests in South Africa. We are able to be responsive, we can attend to people’s issues and therefore they don’t have to go to the streets to burn tyres and property for them to be listened to, going forward.
On the issue of the single election the matter has been presented to all structures of the ruling party it has not gone to Cabinet where this matter is being presented and there is a broad agreement but we will be taking further consultations on the matters going forward.
The benefits are going to ensure that we don’t have an election fatigue as a country. Currently, we have elections and then two and a half years later it’s a another election, it means there is no time for stability to focus on service delivery in the way we do things. It is also going to assist on planning, to have one plan, one manifesto and you are able to ensure you execute it within in a period of five years.
In terms of allocation of resources we will be able to allocate the resources adequately because we have one election. Even on the issue of deployment of personnel in relation to people who represent political parties. Currently, the best cadres are in National Government then the second coach of the train is in Provincial Government and you find the last coach becomes Local Government. You find that we don’t have the best of the best in Local Government, but if you have one election that will be dealt with. These were the issues raised during presentation to various structures. There will be further engagement; Cabinet is the one that decides on matters.
The question on civil servants doing business with the State, I think this question is twofold one deals with the Public Service which are under the Department of Public Service and Administration and also Local Government. In terms of the laws the Public Service Act as amended in 2008 it doesn’t allow any public servant to do business with Government. Even if you are to do business outside your normal work you must get permission from the executive authority. Secondly at a Local Government level in terms of Local Government Laws Amended Act of 2008, leven your immediate family members are not allowed to conduct business with Government if you are employed by Government. I think in terms of the Public Service the Minister can talk to that regime that drives that, thank you very much.
Minister Richard Baloyi: We have developed a code of good practice. We will be going through extensive consultations in this regard. We are going to launch the code on Public Service Day during the Public Service Week starting on the 23rd of June. In that code of conduct we are going to address issues related to the introduction of a Public Service Charter that outlines the dos and the don’ts. Calling on public servants to commit themselves so that we then enforce on management to include this in the annual performance assessment. As far as doing business with Government that is outright no.
The issue is do you really want to continue with the arrangement where you then allow your public servants to share their time of doing work as public servants and doing work as business people outside. We will be going through the consultation sessions as I’ve indicated with a view that we might want to amend some of the legislations that we have, we might want to revisit some of the policies that we have.
We have this in terms of the Public Service Act as amended. You can be allowed to do remunerative work outside, so participating in business. We want to leave it open ended because it’s not only the issue of having an interest. It is also a reality that a human being can only perform to a certain extent and that you need to re-energise so that you are ready to deliver in terms of what is expected of you. For example: a public service nurse who works during the day but who also works for a private clinic doing night shifts. In the process one of the two employers are going to be cheated and you will find in the majority of cases it will not be the private sector that will be cheated, it will be actually the public one. So we are coming with strong measures of recommending, prescribing that this can only be given to a certain category.
When it comes to the issue of doing business there are two things we want to mange. Firstly, the issue of declaration and secondly, the issue of disclosure. In the majority of cases the concept of disclosure has actually been used as a shelter. You disclose as a public servant that you have interest in business so you continue to do business and it becomes a shelter. At the end of the day when it comes to the ills of your participating in those business interests it becomes something that actually complicates the management of that particular conduct.
We are then saying is it not time now that we manage these things on the question of declaration. If you are a public servant you have to sit and adjudicate on a tender and you have interest, you declare your assets. That is the debate we are taking to the people of South Africa and the people will then talk to us and say let’s tighten this regulations because the President has indicated we need to revisit this Public Service regulations, are they all supportive of the State in its mission to make sure we have clean governance, we have accountable public servants, public servants who don’t have divided loyalties and attitudes when it comes to work. So we will be doing that and will finally launch the code on the 23rd of June which will be launching the Public Service Week to take the process forward. Thank you.
Journalist: Minister I think your answer gives a lot of questions than it gives answers. Should you not keep civil servants from doing business at all just to deal with all of these problems that your answers to my questions are raising?
Journalist: I want to ask Minister Shiceka, it actually relates to this whole issue. How do you want to turn around Local Government if senior ANC officials or politicians are allowed to do business with an ANC Local Government? It’s ok to ban officials to do business but what about the politicians like we’ve seen now in Limpopo.
Journalist: Minister Shiceka spoke about the Bill on political office bearers. Where does that process stand in terms of the legislation but also is there a general agreement in all structures of the ruling party that this is the way we are going?
Journalist: You said COSATU is not happy with the office bearers not holding public office in the State. Can you explain what COSATU is not happy with?
Minister Sicelo Shiceka: On the issue of senior officials doing business of political parties with Government. There is no law that prevents that, therefore we are a constitutional State that whatever we do must be prescribed by law. To me the issue that is more important is that we must be able to ensure that people when they do business they do proper business, the quality of the work that is done must be the one that speaks for itself. In terms of the Local Government Laws Amendment Act its says no counsellor or immediate family member can do business with Local Government. In terms of Treasury Regulations those public reps at a national and provincial level can’t do business with Municipalities, very clear on that? Therefore there is no legal basis that you can be able to say that private citizens must not do business with Municipalities. I’m saying we can’t be able to venture into that.
On the issue of political office bearers of parties being employees at a management level of the Council. That has been taken to all structures of the ruling party. If you would recall the President in the January 8th Statement spoke about that matter that is not allowed. COSATU is unhappy because they feel this is going to be abused and ban employees of Municipalities in general even those that are junior to be part of political parties, that’s their concern. We have said then from our side we are dealing with their leadership of Municipalities at a management level that we feel they must not be office bearers. We are not saying they must not be part of the executive committees of political parties but we are saying they must not be office bearers. It means the Chairperson, a Deputy Chairperson, a secretary, a deputy secretary and a Treasury, that’s what we are raising. We are engaging on concerns, but I have said I outlined to them, that the bill is going to be in front of Cabinet in March, then Cabinet will pronounce on it.
Minister Richard Baloyi: We are a public service that is operating in a democratic environment, a democratic society, with a constitution that prescribes the Bill of Rights and the like. It is in this arrangement that when you have to change your Legislation, your policies you must consult the people. That’s why we are saying banning is an option but is that an immediate and outright thing. When we talk to the people, we are actually consulting on the code of good practice to be launched on the 23rd of June. If the people say ‘please ban’, we will not only pronounce but also manage.
We are at the phase of consultation and it is necessary for us to talk about options. The one option is to continue with what is happening but strengthen. What is it that is happening at the moment? At senior management level if public servants do business they disclose, now how do you tighten the management of that? One option is that you tighten your supply chain management, so you will then be able to manage it electronically. So that if there is a tender being issued say in a Municipality in Limpopo you should be able electronically to pick that up in the system and we will then be able to check who else is linked to the activities. This will enable you to check in terms of tracing parts of corruption and then be able to address that. South Africans could say let’s go on strengthening the management of what we have so that you don’t have serious challenges. Bu if South Africans say banning will do, then we will manage that. But let’s allow that - I think media houses present here also want to have their own input so that we then say together can we govern this country and govern it very responsibly.
Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma: We are a young democracy and the important thing is that we should always take stock of lessons learnt in our work and then use those lessons to improve whatever we have found to be a problem. I think that is what we are doing, we have seen there is a problem around this issue of business and public servants so we are learning our lessons and we are trying to use the lessons to improve the governance.
Journalist: Minister Baloyi you were together with Minister Doidge appointed to look at the review of the Ministerial Handbook. What steps has been taken thus far and can you give us any timeframes on when we will see the actual changes if there are any.
Journalist: Minister you admitted that this widespread dissatisfaction with the state of local municipalities but you also seem to be saying we must believe the turnaround strategy is like the panache to all of this. But you would know it’s not the first time that we have had such an intervention. We have had Project Consolidate, we have had many other interventions which were less high profile but which was also meant to deal with Local Government. Why must we believe that this Turnaround Strategy will be the solution? What are you going to do differently that has not been done before?
Journalist: Minister Shiceka, can you not take the initiative yourself to come up with a draft law banning office bearers from the ruling party or wherever they are from having companies that gets millions of rands of tenders, I mean you are in the process of banning office bearers from being senior managers of municipalities. Why do you need to wait for the people to pronounce on this?
Journalist: The National Electricity Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) has recommended a cap for municipalities for the electricity increases they can pass on to consumers. SALGA has challenged this saying that NERSA has no right to introduce such a cap or introduce the blocked tariff. Can you comment on Government’s views and especially in the context of how dependent municipalities have become on the revenue they generate from electricity sales.
Journalist: There were reports that about 500 000 IDs that were going to be destroyed because people haven’t claimed them. Then the Department turnaround and said something else, what is the real issue? How many are going to be destroyed if they are going to be destroyed?
To Minister Baloyi: the suspended Correctional Services Commissioner, Xoliswa Sibeko, you spoke to her on behalf of the Minister of Correctional Services about her suspension. Now her position has been advertised and she says she wants her job back because she’s been cleared. What is your understanding on this issue, has she been fired?
Minister Sicelo Shiceka: The difference is that, this intervention is driven by us internally in Government we have not used any consultant to develop a state of Local Government to understand what are the challenges; it has never been done before. The second thing is the developed solutions have been done by officials in the Department, Province and National without any involvement of consultants. The third most important thing is that we want this programme to be owned by the people even if politicians can go; the programme must remain and be defended by the people because it’s owned by the people.
Once South Africans own this programme it must be in their hearts and minds this programme. They must make Government accountable in terms of what is expected of them. Now those are the fundamental shifts in a way these things are being done, and the resourcing of the programme is going to be looked at by ourselves.
We want to ensure that even the white communities make a contribution because we believe if all of us can use our resources we can be a winning nation. We have taken the programme to the African National Congress (ANC) Nationa; Executive Committee (NEC), and central executive committee of the Communist Party, to the Special Congress of the Communist Party, we are presented it to COSATU yesterday and it has also been taken to the Alliance Summit, everybody is supporting the programme. This means it’s not an individual who will find solutions on its own, we are saying the whole of society must rally behind the programme and support it. It’s not about me or the department or Government, it’s about South Africans and ensuring they are doing what they should be doing. There are a lot of elements of the turnaround strategy that will be unveiled as we go around; to ensure things are changing.
On the legislation to ban leaders of political parties particularly the ruling party from accessing tenders. I think we must look at the constitution. Those people don’t take decisions about which tenders must be allocated where, are we not depriving people of their right in terms of economic activity that is what we must be discussing. We must also look at the constitution of the Bill of Rights in doing so because the reason for people to be barred from tender issues is when they take decisions in those structures. It’s for the nation to discuss whether it’s the right thing to do but from our side as Government the matter has not been discussed by the party. I think you would appreciate that whatever we do, we do things to advance the course of the party that has deployed us to be here. Therefore in that respect we would not as a ministry come with a law that has not been researched on its constitutionality in the way we do things. If people are raising it we are prepared to debate this going forward.
Coming to the issue of the capping, the almost 16% of capping around surcharges that municipalities are putting on services, it is something that we believe even ourselves, NERSA has no local standing on the matter. We are preparing a meeting with NERSA to have a discussion on the matter because we believe they have gone beyond what is expected of them in relation to the issue of surcharges. The people who look at that is National Treasury and ourselves because we look at the macro economic issues, it’s not a matter of NERSA. It’s going to hurt municipalities because some of them they were charging surcharges even up to 35%, now if you tell them you no longer have this income, it’s going to have fundamental implications to municipalities. This is why we want to discuss this issue with NERSA and be able to find a solution on this matter. We believe municipalities must have revenue equally we don’t believe that municipalities must charge people in a way that is un-transparent because we believe surcharges must be open, people must know what they are being charged at that level. Thanks.
Minister Richard Baloyi: On the issue about the commissioner of Correctional Services, it is true that I had a discussion with her and the Minister. It is true that I am continuing to do that in my capacity as Minister of Public Service and Administration, responsibly to deal with such issues. I think it will be fair for us not to get into the details in terms of the merit of the case, safe to indicate that in no time the contestation will come to a close and the public will know about that. I think it will be proper that is what they call sub-judicate it may not be the right thing for me deeply involved in dealing with this matter to comment before the final processing of the matter as I indicated there are contestations.
Minister Doidge and I have signed responsibility to look at reviewing the Ministerial Handbook to look at the applicability and otherwise of certain clauses of the Handbook. We will soon finalise it. We have a draft that is still being considered because we were just leading the process. But we will submit a final position that will then say if it goes out for public consumption. The collective leadership of Government will add their views on the proposals. So very soon we will communicate in terms of which areas of the Ministerial Handbook we’re suggesting need to be tightened or revisited in terms of content. Certainly before the Lekgotla and before the World Cup.
Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma: Let me start by saying when somebody applies for an ID the application goes through head office then the ID eventually get sent to their offices where they applied. The IDs get kept for 6 months waiting for the applicant to collect. We also try and send them sms’s to remind them to collect their IDs but as you know people change sms’s. This system of sms’s has just started. After 6 months, the offices firstly do not have a lot of space to store these IDs. Secondly it’s not advisable that they remain at the local offices so after 6 months they get sent back to head office. These 500 IDs are the ones that are at head offices. Some of them are as old as 2004. When applicants go to the offices after 6 months they will be informed that their ID has been sent to head office. The office will then send a message to Head Office for the respective ID should be sent back again because the applicant has surfaced. Obviously we will not be able to keep those IDs for a100yrs at some stage we will have to do something about them. But what is important for the public to understand is that it’s very important to look after your ID.
Some of these people who don’t fetch their IDs is due to them perhaps going to the bank and realising they forgot their ID, they then go to the Home Affairs office and get a temporary ID. Once you have applied for an ID, even a temporary ID, the process goes on to produce the ID itself.
During elections people lose their IDs and then obtain a temporary ID which allows them to vote. However, in the meantime the process goes on to produce a new ID. In this process the person has found their ID and has even forgotten that they have applied for a new ID. It’s very important for people to look after their identity documents and not to rush to Home Affairs to apply for an ID if they don’t find their ID. Some of them may have been people who have passed on so there would be a variety of reasons why people have not fetched that IDs. If they are not collected, we might have to destroy them, but at the moment they are at head office waiting to be collected. Even if you have found your old ID you must still collect the new one because legally the one that you lost get’s overtaken by the new one. If there was a legal dispute and you were using the old one you would lose the case because the one that is valid is the latest one. We are looking at increasing the tariffs for ID applications because the first application is free and will remain like that. But the second application you pay less than R20.00 so we are going to increase the tariffs so that people think twice before going to the nearest office to apply for an ID. So I would ask you as the media, to from time to time make sure that in the public you make that point that people must look after their identity documents, it’s something that you really value, how many times you lose your car or house keys, we don’t because we value them. The ID should be the same then we won’t have thousands of IDs sitting at offices waiting to be collected. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for coming to this cluster and your interactive engagements and your suggestions, we will examine them. Thank you.
Issued by: Government Communications (GCIS)
3 March 2010
