Comments by Minister Dlamini Zuma
Thank you very much. As you can see, I am quite nervous meeting you for the first time in this new portfolio. You are all aware of the mandate of the Department of Home Affairs and indeed, the department is a very strategic institution for government and for the nation as a whole. As you know, we deal with all your civic issues and immigration. We have to issue you with birth certificates, you when you give birth we are there, when you get married we are there, when you require an identity document we are there, when you require a passport we are there, and of course when you depart from this earth, Home Affairs is there as well.
And of course, it is very important for the government to know who is South African and also for the world to know who South Africa is so we are the custodians of South Africanness in a way. When you leave this country leaving a South African passport we are the one's who give you that passport. Your ID that says you are a citizen of this country and off course, you know that you require an ID for almost everything. It regulates most of the work starting with elections that chooses us to come into government, opening of bank accounts, buying of property, going to school, everything.
Of course, the other arm of our services is immigration which looks at people coming into South Africa for various reasons, for study, work, whether they have scarce skills that South Africa requires, whether they come in to marry someone, all the various permits are issued by Home Affairs permanent, temporary, naturalisation, the rest and of course, coupled with that we have to regulate movement into South Africa through the legal ports of entry. Not the borders, we do not look after the borders because I have seen sometimes on television that Home Affairs is pictured when someone is coming through the fence. That is not Home Affairs.
The borders are controlled by the security forces but we have to look at the ports of entry which are different from someone who is entering the country illegally. And of course, we have to determine whether those requesting asylum qualify. We also know that a lot of who are classified as asylum seekers are actually coming to South Africa to look for work and are therefore economic migrants. But because there is no other way in which they can enter South Africa and receive legal documentation they go through the asylum route which then creates a lot of challenges for us all.
So, yes, that is what we do, but now, what are we going to do to improve the services at Home Affairs. I am saying to improve the services because obviously no department can say they have reached the limits and can therefore not be improved. However, Home Affairs does require improvement even though I must admit there has been some improvement in the last few years – in services; turn around time for IDs and passports. There has been noticeable improvement. But of course, this government came in emphasising service delivery so we must keep improving on this.
I must also say that it is not a secret that whilst the majority of staff at Home Affairs do their work diligently and honestly there is a critical mass of employees who are corrupt and that is why we find our documents not being secure. You cannot be sure that a South African ID definitely belongs to a South African and they deserve to carry that ID. You cannot be sure that the carrier of a birth certificate indicating the bearer was born in South Africa is valid. And so it goes on, whether it is the passports or other documents. These are the major problems. As you know, some countries have begun demanding visas where they were not required before and it is precisely because they cannot be sure of the authenticity of the documentation.
They can no longer be sure that when a South African passport is produced at their ports of entry that indeed they are South Africans. This is what has caused those problems and of course, internationally, our passports are becoming a bit suspect because of that. We have a new passport that has any number of security features which is a good thing but it is just part of the problem that we have solved because if that passport with its good security features is being carried by someone who has bought it or bribed someone for it then that passport with its security features is of no use because that passport is in the wrong hands.
So, we need to clean up, to produce a population register that really reflects who is South Africa. That is not going to be an easy task because once corruption takes root anywhere it is not the easiest thing to deal with. But I think we cannot deal with all the corruption at Home Affairs, it will have to be a national effort because some of the people who vouch for people as having been born in South Africa are not Home Affairs employees.
Home Affairs officials, if you are not on the population register have to know if you are a South African or not and that will be when you come for late birth registration. Our view is that is where we will have to start. If you cannot secure the birth registration and ensure it happens and minimise the need for late registration then we will not solve this problem. So, birth registration is the most important because once you have a birth certificate you are entitled to apply for a South African ID and of course, once you have a birth certificate you can apply for a passport and so on.
So, what are the kinds of things we are thinking of doing to first minimise the need for late registration is to work on a huge national campaign for the registration of births. For the moment however we are working on changing the birth certificate received when you are born because that birth certificate has the baby's name and the number which would eventually become the ID number.
It does not however bear any details of the parents and this has been abused because then people can put anyone's name and an ID number and once they have this they can apply for an ID document. We are therefore looking at changing the birth certificate to at least include the mother’s details so that we can check if the mother is South African. The baby being born in South Africa has a right to be a South African but has to be born to the mother listed on the certificate. Most of the late registrations are adults so you cannot tell where they were born, their parents or anything else. This is really one area we have to tighten.
Of course you will ask me how long this is going to take because if by next year, all the babies registered it will still be 16 years before they apply for an ID and what will happen in between. So, as an interim measure we are looking at going to the schools, particularly primary schools, because we know that the registration at primary school is very high so we can undertake a huge campaign to go to primary schools over the next two to three years and make sure that every child under the age of 15 is registered and that will then help us later on because we will be assured that these children are on our population register and you will see the child at school, he will be real, not just a birth certificate. And at the same time, we are trying to check at what age can we take fingerprints because we want to as an interim measure be able to take fingerprints before the age of 16.
So that we can put those fingerprints in our population register so that when our kids go to apply for an ID they can put their thumb and check if they are in the register. We do not have to take new fingerprints. Once we have ascertained at what age this can be done, we will begin this process as well. And of course, we also would like to go to secondary schools and begin to issue IDs to all kids at school who are over the age of 16 and this will also help us in letting us know to whom exactly we are issuing IDs to make sure that when there are events like elections, we are not in a pressure cooker to produce IDs so people can do and vote because this is also a very vulnerable time for us because everyone requires an ID and political parties are breathing down our necks because people need to vote. We must remove this pressure, we must also remove the pressure from our offices because the majority of those requiring IDs will be over the age of 16 and it is not adults so most of these will still be present at secondary schools.
So these are some of the major campaigns we would like to undertake:
1. Registering kids at primary school
2. Trying to take their fingerprints earlier
3. To begin to issue IDs while people are still at school.
That way we will begin to have a cleaner population register so that when somebody comes as an adult asking for a birth certificate than we can take our time to investigate who they are and if you have waited for 40 years for an ID, you can wait for six months while we investigate the authenticity of your application. But we want to make sure that the bulk of South Africans receive their IDs on time and they are not hassled. Then we can investigate properly those we are not sure of and also ensure that those who issue IDs to those who are at an age where they should not be asking for IDs are really scrutinised properly.
We need to make sure we deal with death certificates properly. Because unfortunately a lot of us would want to think there is no corruption around death but unfortunately in the real world, this happens. So we have to make sure that death certificates are issued to those who are dead and not to those who want to cash their life insurances while they are still alive. We want to make sure than when someone is dead they are removed from the population register so that eventually we can have a population register that is clean, that reflects the population of South Africa.
Why is this important? Besides the fact that it secures the South African identity and we would know who our citizens are, no criminals could misuse our documentation; it is also a very strategic institution for our planning as government and as a nation. If we had a clean population register and if we could say we know exactly how many kids were born last year we would tell how many kids are going to go to school in seven years, we would know roughly how many kids would be in matric 11 years from now, we would know how many kids would be getting into the job market or tertiary education following this. Labour, education, healthcare services would be served by this information. An accurate population register is therefore important for government planning and the nation as a whole. So these are some of the things we are looking at.
We also of course deal with immigration so we also need to know who is coming in at the points of entry and people do not bribe their way to gain entry to South Africa. We must know why they are in South Africa and where they are going. We must also deal with the asylum seekers. We may have to review our legislation to ensure that it has all the elements it needs to deal with this situation but, not just Home Affairs, the country as a whole needs to think about how to separate people who are coming because they really have a reason to seek asylum and those who are coming to South Africa just to look for jobs.
The country needs to think about this. I do not have answers right now because it is not an area that is the competence of Home Affairs but it is something government will have to discuss if we want to clean up on the asylum seeking side so that we do not have a system that is clogged. So, that is an area that government will be looking at as well and of course, there is another area that I think the population needs to be informed about.
Besides the corruption, you know people may offer money if you say you were with me at school and I was born in your area the population itself has to be conscious and not do improper things. This includes marrying someone for money so that those people can get residence permits in South Africa. All of this has to be dealt with. But there is a particular issue, every year Home Affairs issues in excess of two million IDs but I am told that between 50 to 60% of these are being reissued to South Africans who say they have lost their IDs.
Now that cannot happen. We cannot have over a million IDs being issued every year – in excess of new IDs – because South Africans do not look after their IDs. I think South Africans need to look after their IDs. We can save a lot of time, money, provide better service to those applying for IDs for the first time if we do not have to be reissuing IDs to over a million people each year.
And then you find that some of the IDs that have been reissued are not collected where they should have been collected and when asked why these have not been collected, they reply that they have found their old IDs. This cannot continue. We have to have a system that when people have their IDs they carry certified copies rather than the original. However, citizens may choose to deal with this, it has to be only very few people who reapply for IDs to be issued. This can only happen if the citizenry is educated and informed. There are fewer people who lose their drivers licences because they are aware of the consequences of this.
Losing an ID does not have same consequences and only costs R17. We have to really talk to the population to stop this because it really clogs the system, it gives opportunities for abuse and opportunities are lost for improving the service to those who really need IDs and it is very costly to the state in terms of money, time, and personnel. So, we really have to all work together if we want the Department of Home Affairs to offer excellent services and this is possible.
We can have a Home Affairs Department that offers excellence. It will have to be a national effort. I really want to stress this. It cannot only be Home Affairs. Home Affairs does have a lot to do, it must clean up and people must be proud of their citizenry, their identity must make sure the integrity of our documents is not undermined. South Africans must look after their documents.
There are other internal issues we have to deal with, capacity in terms of personnel, training and skills including management and administration. When I talk about ports of entry, I am referring to all of them. So we need to ensure we are on top of all of this. Our immigration officers should have integrity, have proper training and people come into South Africa legitimately. There are things we have to do internally. We have to assume a zero-tolerance policy to corruption.
Anyone who is found to be selling an ID should not be at Home Affairs. This is a crime. The criminal justice system must ensure that these people are punished appropriately because not only does it undermine the integrity of our documents, it endangers the security of our state. It is more serious than we imagine. It undermines our own security as a country. Work has started, there is much more to be done but we all, including the media, must work with us to ensure people understand their responsibilities as citizens. This wholesale selling of your ID is really rather unpatriotic – it demonstrates you are not proud of your identity or yourself and are not keen to protect your state.
Thank you.
Comments by Deputy Minister Malusi Gigaba
On the point the Minister has been emphasising since we have been meeting with the officials in the department corruption is a bilateral crime. As much as we can deal with officials within the department we must shut down the market for corruption within the community, the people who are prepared to order fraudulent marriage certificates, IDs and passports. As long as there is a demand it will be difficult to address the supply. So, we will depend on the good citizenry to ensure we shut down the market for these fraudulent goods.
With regard to the visa waiver, I must emphasise this is a reciprocal waiver. As much as Zimbabweans can enter South Africa for up to 90 days, South Africans also have a 90 day visa waiver to enter Zimbabwe. This visa waiver is also not unique to Zimbabwe. We already have a 30 day waiver for Lesotho, Namibia, Mozambique, Britain, US and Israel. Whereas the British government has cancelled the visa waiver for South Africans, we have not reciprocated for British citizens. So, we must not look at this waiver at applying only to Zimbabweans.
Movement between South Africa and Zimbabwe is historical – it does not happen only because of the visa waiver. As the Minister has said the visa waiver has been geared primarily at maintaining regularity. If you look at Mozambique and Swaziland citizens visit Nelspruit quite often. What we are trying to do is regulate access to South Africa by our neighbours because the more people come through legitimate ports of entry the more we can regulate and monitor access to and from South Africa.
Comments by DG Mavuso Msimang
The question asked about the audit of the population register yes, we have already begun the process of auditing the population register. Everything on the register will be reviewed. It is an ongoing process.
Questions and answers:
Question: Minister, with regard to visas for the UK, will you be using your contacts from your former portfolio to renegotiate entry requirements to the UK? Regarding corruption within Home Affairs, what will you be doing to these corrupt officials to ensure our documents retain their integrity?
Answer: Firstly, more than contacts I have to use my knowledge on how people feel when they meet someone carrying a South African passport and the people isn’t but the passport is. We will have to renegotiate but not now. Because when we renegotiate I think we will have to be able to say that the vast majority of South Africans will be carrying South African passports.
So, we have to do work at home first before we go negotiating because I do not think it was the lack of contacts or friendship but the reality of many people coming in carrying South African passports but not being South African. So, I think at the moment the ball is in our court. And once we think we have done enough cleaning we can go back to them and renegotiate.
Corrupt officials must go from the Department. We should not tolerate a corrupt official at any level. We should all be honest, go and do an honest days work. If there is corruption, I think that official should leave the Department. You should be at Home Affairs, like any other department because you want to work. You should not be like an inmate who is there because you have to be there. So, if you do not do what the department expects you to do as well as to undermine the integrity of the department and the state then you should leave.
The criminal justice system must help us. If someone has committed a crime they should know they will not escape just because they have money and can pay the fine. There will be zero-tolerance. It also demoralises those who are honest because the whole department is brushed with the same paint. We should agree if there is enough evidence to show that the official has been corrupt, the official must leave.
Question: Minister, regarding the smart cards, how will this work?
Answer: As far as I know there were some problems and challenges with the tender so we are re-looking at this matter. We will be doing this. It will help because you see part of the other problem I did not mention was the use of IT in streamlining and speeding up processes. But also securing the processes, though it is not enough on its own.
It also has to be operated by honest people. It will also help to trace back to which official dealt with which passport if you find a passport in the wrong hands. IT is very important and I think the smart card will assist us; the process of manually producing an ID makes it very vulnerable. For instance, our ID has a pasted photo in it so it means if you can get hold of the ID and have someone personalise it for you or even if you find an ID that already been produced you can remove the photo and put in your own picture. That is why you have the occurrence of double IDs with different pictures. So, the smart card will help a bit because it will not be a pasted photo but on online one. We are still re-looking at this issue. Part of the problem was the tender and we were thinking of restarting this process but working with other departments, Finance for example. As soon as we overcome this initial transition process we will finalise the discussions.
Question: Minister, you used the term critical mass of corrupt officials in the Department. Could you explain what it was you meant by this? The department has announced that visa requirements for Zimbabweans at ports of entry have been relaxed. Has this led to an increase in the number of Zimbabweans entering South Africa?
Answer: I don't have the exact figures but the fact is if this was a once off thing we would not know about it. The fact is that there is a lot of abuse of birth certificate late registration. We know there is corruption in some of the offices just in terms of service deliveries. I cannot give you the exact numbers but it is rife enough for us to be worried and wanting to do something about it.
In terms of the Zimbabweans, I don't have the figures, but there hasn't been a very dramatic increase. I think what has happened in terms of what some of the media have been reporting is that some of the figures we are looking at, we have put figures on Zimbabweans coming in and going out. The port of entry then says we handled this many Zimbabweans. The media then says this many Zimbabweans came in. The ports of entry look at the load of Zimbabweans coming in and out. If you look at the figures of Zimbabweans coming in and out, the residual figures are not very high and that is the number we should be concerned with. The media has mistaken the numbers coming in and out as if there were Zimbabweans coming in everyday.
Question: Minister, what is the rationale about the abolition of the visa system? When talking of the new passport, what value will it have if you have corrupt officials?
Answer: The passport machine has already arrived. There were two sides to the new problem – with the heightened security in the world we needed to have a passport with more security features than before. The other part if the part to which you have just referred this is why I explained at length to explain we needed to ensure the integrity of our document is not undermined, beginning with the registration of births.
The first thing you have to have is a birth certificate to get a passport and if your fingerprints are on the population register then we can look into escalating awareness of people who come in for documentation at odd times. The problem at the moment is that many South Africans do not have birth certificates so the vulnerability is there. If you can block these areas and deal with corruption within the Department we can solve this situation. That is why I am saying we will renegotiate with the British but not now.
Zimbabweans, there is an old Southern African Development Community (SADC) decision that we must have free movement of people within SADC and while the protocol is still being ratified there was an agreement taken by Heads of State that we have to enter into bilateral agreements to have visa waivers. The visa waiver does not allow you to permanently be in South Africa.
It allows you to come in and out of South Africa or once for a period of 90 days in total. You need to apply for a visa after 90 days. Because of the economic difficulties in Zimbabwe and the long queues of people wanting visas – the majority of which wanted to come in to shop for food or clothes, etc. The majority of people who want to live in South Africa cannot be avoided. International law obliges you to process an asylum seeker until they have exhausted all the avenues in South Africa. This is the major problem.
The economic migrants are also another problem who comes in anyway whether there is a visa or visa waiver. Our problem is the portion of people who say they are asylum seekers because this is the only way of legalising their stay.
Question: Minister what are you going to do about fraudulent passports and IDs already issued? Where do you think the gaps are in the South African asylum laws?
Answer: In terms of asylum laws one of the things I said that was quite critical if for government as a whole to look at how to separate the true asylum seekers from the economic migrants because at the moment they use the same law and it is not right to use the same law. They clog the system and create unnecessary problems. But at the moment, there is no law that separates them. This is just one glaring example. It is not up to Home Affairs to decide what to do with economic migrants that are why I say the matter needs to be decided by government as a whole.
Regarding the smart card, people will have to get online photos, etc and perhaps this will remove some of the people who do not want to take photos online. I hope this will help us in weeding out some of the fraudulently issued documents. If you as a South African know that someone if using a fraudulent document, do not be an accomplice to the crime.
Question: Minister, you spoke of the reissuing of IDs – are you considering consequences if people reapply for IDs?
Answer: Our first approach is to educate people not to lose their IDs and to look after them. This will be the first step. Once we have done this education drive we are considering whether we should increase the fee payable if you are reapplying for an ID because at the moment you pay the same amount. The first step is public education so as few people as possible lose their IDs. We are also going to make sure that the first issues are first in queue and the reissues behind.
Question: Minister, you have been dubbed Mrs Fixit, are you ready to take up the challenge?
Answer: Who is Mr Fixit? If I am Mrs Fixit, who is Mr Fixit? Part of the national effort I was referring – no business person should take an undocumented person into employment whether South African or not. An ID should at least be required. There are business people who give employment to undocumented persons because they want to exploit them. We should make sure all employees are documented either as domestic personnel or in the business.
I think the Mrs Fixit is a double-edged sword – because it expresses some confidence that you can do things but also places a large responsibility on you especially when dealing with a complex department like Home Affairs. I took it as positive things there is confidence in me that I can do it but I always say you can do it if you have a good team so the other part of it is to assemble a good team, to get rid of the corrupt and bring in new people that can form a good team.
Enquiries:
Ronnie Mamoepa
Cell: 082 990 4853
Issued by: Department of Home Affairs
25 May 2009
