the Budget by Hon. NN MapisaâNqakula, Minister of Home Affairs, to the National
Council of Provinces
6 June 2006
Chairperson
Honourable Members
Senior officials of our department
Friends
Once again, we appreciate the opportunity to present our budget and plan of
action before this upper House of Parliament.
This past Sunday, our country joined the rest of the world in celebrating
the International Childrenâs Day. We therefore take this opportunity as we
present our budget to pledge the commitment of our country and its people to
addressing the plight of millions of children all over the world, particularly
their social security and comfort.
Chairperson, we are proud that we are presenting our budget in the year that
marks the 50th anniversary of the womenâs march. Indeed this was one of the
most heroic womenâs marches ever staged in the history of our country, and the
world.
On this day women from all walks of life and parts of the country staged one
of the most significant marches that has laid a sustainable basis for the
emancipation and actual liberation of women.
Through this march women challenged one of the key pillars of the oppressive
apartheid system, in particular the pass laws.
Honourable members, it gives me pleasure to dedicate this budget vote to the
ideals and legacy left by these heroines of our liberation struggle. Through
their sacrifice, the development and empowerment of women is a living
reality.
Chairperson, let me remind the House that in the next coming week, together
with all our people, united in their diversity, we will be celebrating the 30th
anniversary of the youth month. We are proud that our Department has
demonstrated its commitment to make a meaningful contribution in improving the
quality of life of young people, the future leaders of our beloved country.
Chairperson, in our previous Budget Vote we made certain commitments with
regard to improving service delivery standards for our people. This was the
basis on which you supported and passed our budget vote. Let me take this
opportunity to report back on the progress made thus far.
We said we shall strengthen our capacity for service delivery in
provinces.
As Honourable members are aware, one of the key challenges facing the
Department is the over-centralisation of functions and services. This affected
our capacity to provide effective and efficient services to our people
especially in the most remote parts of our country.
I am proud to report that in the previous year we have appointed eight
provincial managers at Chief Director level.
This will allow us to further strengthen our management capacity in the
provinces by appointing senior managers at the level of Directors at regional
level. Through this process our provinces will have more powers to exercise
control over all their administrative functions that have a direct bearing on
service delivery.
Honourable members, as Iâm speaking to you now, we have already decided that
in the current financial year all posts from level 1-8 will be filled in
provinces. This will definitely resolve delays during the process of filling
posts; it will also improve staff morale and further enhance our commitment to
the principles of Batho Pele.
As part of this effort, we have also committed ourselves to fill 898
critical posts in the previous financial year. We have thus far managed to fill
at least 634 posts and the rest will be filled in the current financial
year.
For the year 2006/07 we are committing ourselves to fill at least 993 posts
in provinces.
We said we would investigate the extent and prevalence of lack of service
provision with regard to our civic services function and to use this data in
planning our resource allocation.
We have now received the report of a survey we had commissioned through the
Human Sciences Research Council to determine the extent of problems regarding
our provision of services to citizens. One of the key outcomes of this process
is that for the first time now, we have reliable data regarding the specific
provinces and localities where there is greater need for our services and where
the bulk of our activities and resources should be concentrated.
The report has revealed that about 1.5 million South Africans are likely not
to have green bar-coded identity documents (IDs) with the situation more
serious in provinces of KwaZulu-Natal, North West and Mpumalanga.
It also suggests that the Western Cape has the largest proportion of people
who have not applied for the green bar-coded IDs and that this was generally
the case amongst white South Africans nationally. The statistics for the
registration of birth and deaths notices also reflect greater reluctance
amongst people in provinces with large rural communities such as KwaZulu-Natal,
Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga.
We are currently developing a plan to implement its recommendations and we
will report to members on progress made in this regard.
On Infrastructural Development
Again, Honourable members, we commissioned the Council for Scientific and
Industrial Research (CSIR) to conduct an investigation to determine the
suitable location and spread of our offices through-out the country. According
to the report we require an additional 170 offices to ensure easy access to our
services.
As part of our plan to implement the recommendations of the survey, we will
be requesting additional funds to build these offices over a period of three
years. We are pleased to announce that for this financial year we will commence
with the construction of new offices at an estimated cost of R8 million per
office in the following areas: Gauteng province - Sebokeng; North West â Taung;
Free State â Phauthaditjaba.
As members will recall, we committed ourselves to introduce mobile units as
part of our immediate intervention to ensure that our services are accessible
to even the most remote rural areas of our country.
We are proud to report that in the previous financial year we deployed 67
mobile units installed with state of the art technology. In this current
financial year we will be deploying an additional 42 mobile units. This is how
these mobile units were allocated to provinces:
Gauteng
2005/06: 6
2006/07 (still to be deployed): 4
Limpopo
2005/06: 10
2006/07 (still to be deployed): 6
North West
2005/06: 6
2006/07 (still to be deployed): 4
Free State
2005/06: 6
2006/07 (still to be deployed): 4
Northern Cape
2005/06: 7
2006/07 (still to be deployed): 4
Western Cape
2005/06: 6
2006/07 (still to be deployed): 4
Eastern Cape
2005/06: 10
2006/07 (still to be deployed): 6
KwaZulu-Natal
2005/06: 10
2006/07 (still to be deployed): 6
Mpumalanga
2005/06: 6
2006/07 (still to be deployed): 4
TOTAL
2005/06: 67
2006/07 (still to be deployed): 42
Chairperson, allow us to report to members the meaningful impact these
mobile units are making towards improving service delivery. Since they were
introduced in April 2005 to date, we received more than 45 000 ID applications
and registered more than 30 000 Birth Certificates. These mobile units have
also made tremendous contribution in the registration of marriages.
Civic Services
As members are aware, since our appointment into office, we have through our
community outreach programmes such as Imbizos, succeeded to raise awareness
about the significance of our enabling documents. This is confirmed by the
increased levels of participation and response by members of the public in
applying for these documents
I refer in this case to the Marriage Registration and Status Verification
Campaign, Lokisa Ditokomane Campaign and our ID Campaign during national and
local government elections.
Honourable members we are proud to report that since the launch of these
campaigns and the positive response received, we have made a difference in the
lives of our people and we will therefore continue with these campaigns.
We said we shall finalise certain aspects to provide stable policy to manage
and capacitate immigration services.
Following the directive of the President with regard to the above, the
Immigration Act was amended in 2004 with the aim of ensuring that is properly
aligned to support national objectives. I refer in this case to the attraction
of scarce skills, crime prevention and contributing to economic growth and
meeting our foreign policy objectives.
We are now nearing the end of the first year of the implementation of the
new Immigration Act and its regulations, and we believe that the new Act has
succeeded in addressing the concerns that gave rise to the directive of the
President.
The first year of implementation has also given us an opportunity to rectify
some of the inherent weaknesses during implementation and these are being
addressed. Members must also realise that as Home Affairs, I do not decide what
those skills are. The Act requires me to consult with other Ministers and their
departments in deciding on quotas and with the recent launch of the Joint
Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition (JIPSA) (of which we are part) we
will revise the current quotas in consultation with other stakeholders.
I have taken note of the representation made with regard to the current
two-year limit on Intra-company transfer work permit and this period will be
extended.
We have announced the start of the Refugee Backlog Project.
We have committed ourselves before this House to take measures to reduce the
huge backlog in processing and finalising the application of asylum seekers.
The backlog project is currently running in addition to the normal work of
processing new application at our reception offices. We shall officially launch
the project on World Refugee Day on the 20th of this month.
We also said we shall finalise some of the key technology projects that we
are involved in as part of the process towards the Home Affairs National
Identity System (HANIS)
Chairperson we can report that we are nearing the completion of the process
of electronic capturing of the manual fingerprint records archived by the
Department as part of our Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS).
The completion of this process will enhance the credibility of our information
records, in particular our National Population Register.
Chairperson and Honourable members, before I conclude my address, I would
like to draw your attention to the fact our Department has received a
disclaimer opinion by the Auditor-General for the 2004/05 financial year.
Let me assure members and the House that I have requested National Treasury
to intervene in this regard. I will report to members on the outcomes of this
process.
I am confident that that through this budget, our Department will continue
to improve the quality of service to our people, and to serve them with respect
and the dignity they deserveâ¦we will not fail them.
Issued by: Department of Home Affairs
6 June 2006
