Date: 14/04/2010
Source: African Christian Democratic Party
Title: ACDP: Swart: ACDP Member of Parliament on the Home Affairs budget, National Assembly

"Chairperson, Honourable Minister, the aim of the Department of Home Affairs is to efficiently safeguard citizens' identity and status, regulate migration to ensure security, promote development and fulfil its international obligations.

The department of Home Affairs will receive an allocation of R5, 919 billion compared to the amount of R 5, 263 allocated in 2009/10.

One of the key challenges faced by the department is the need to find a balance between fast-tracking citizen registration and ensuring the integrity of South African citizenship. Anecdotes abounded of citizens previously struggling for years to obtain identity documents. This resulted in those citizens not being able to access particularly social welfare services.

There have been improvements following the 2007 turnaround strategy under the guidance of former DG Mr. Msimang - the waiting time for ID documents has been substantially reduced, and temporary ID's can be issued immediately. The security features of the documents have been enhanced, starting with passports. There is still a long way to go to improve service delivery - with the long queues and waiting time at Home Affairs offices being a particular concern.

This was particularly relevant last year with the global economic slowdown, and millions of South Africans having to rely on social welfare payments for survival. Birth certificates and ID documents are necessary to access these services and must be more readily obtainable.

There are still many challenges facing the department. As the former DG pointed out, there is a lack of capacity for the management of large IT projects as the state is unable to pay market-related salaries, particularly for IT experts.

The lack of sufficient IT systems makes it very difficult to curb fraudulent activities amongst employees. The fraudulent sale of identity and citizenship by corrupt officials is still widespread and represents a risk to national security, promotes identity theft and undermines the value and status of our passports. The "track and trace" IT system is an attempt to address these deficiencies. In this regard Minster, when is it expected that the United Kingdom will lift its requirement of visa's for south Africans visiting the UK given the improvements that have been effected in our passports.

Most of the fraud occurs when people apply late to register a birth certificate. This is clearly an area that needs to be tightened considerably to ensure the integrity of our ID's and passports. Registration at birth should be the only entry point for South Africans to the National Population Register. The law states that newborn babies must be registered within 30 days - or at least before their first birthday. Whilst the ACDP appreciates that many people live in rural areas that are far away from home affairs offices, ideally late registrations of birth should be limited to only very exceptional cases, particularly after the first year of birth. We thus support the target of 70 per cent of all new born children being registered before their first birthday (the average total births is 1 million per year) for 2010/11 increasing to 90 percent by 2012/13.


As has been pointed out, the department will play a key role at land and air ports of entry during the Fifa Soccer World Cup to facilitate the secure movement of Fifa officials and soccer fans. The ACDP supports the use of express lanes and a special events visa, as well as the introduction of advance passenger processing linked to a control centre. We trust that these steps will ensure that visitors are speedily processed as immigration officers are often the first contacts that visitors have - their treatment will leave a lasting impression on them.

The steps employed for the Soccer World Cup will assist in building permitting and movement control systems that are required for the effective management of immigration in the longer term, including economic migration. These steps must ensure that foreign nationals who are suspected of being involved in transnational crime and terrorism are refused entry whilst those who will add value to our country are more speedily processed.

The ACDP would also like to particularly commend the deputy Minister in his attempts to reduce child and adult pornography. We believe that pornography is the theory and rape is the practice.

There are many and varied challenges facing the Department and it has yet to receive an unqualified report from the auditor -general. Nevertheless, I would like, on behalf of the ACDP, to thank all dedicated staff members for their committed and hard work in improving the department, and congratulate Mr Mkuseli Apleni on his appointment as DG, as well as wishing Mr. Msimang well in his retirement."