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DOH: Malusi Gigaba: Address by Minister of Home Affairs, at the Home Affairs Stakeholder Summit, (29/09/2015)

Malusi Gigaba
Photo by Duane Daws
Malusi Gigaba

29th September 2015

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Good morning, I am extremely pleased to be here with you today.

All government institutions must work closely and collaboratively with citizens and communities to be effective.

This is perhaps more true for the Department of Home Affairs than most.

We are a Department that must touch every single citizen of this country, from cradle to grave.

We must be there when you are born, when you come of age, when you travel internationally, when you marry, and when you die.

By recognizing and protecting your identity and status as South Africans, we help forge the single, common citizenship which is a hard-won and central facet of our democracy.

So working with active citizens such as yourselves is critical if we are to successfully knit together- through effective civil registration- a social fabric which ties every South African together.

I have had the opportunity to interact with many of you in my visits to different provinces over the last year, and perhaps even previously when I was Deputy Minister in the Department.

You have been an invaluable partner in our work, helping us extend our services to all corners of the country and ensuring they respond to the specific needs of our people on the ground.

Thus it is important that we meet from time to time as partners to share priorities, experiences, challenges and opportunities.

Today I would like to share some of my priorities with you, and enlist your help in key areas.

I have outlined five priorities for Home Affairs during this fifth democratic administration.

The first priority is to make progress on the current phase of the Modernisation programme, which is critical to improve services to citizens, as a digital / paperless back office environment will enable the Department to serve customers more efficiently.

This entails building a National Identity System including replacement of all 38 million Green ID books with our flagship, award-winning Smart ID Card.

It also includes the introduction of e-channels for various services, including our piloting of Smart ID Card applications at banks, which we will launch in the coming days.

A further critical element will be building an uninterruptible network which will enable us to deliver services irrespective of disruptions to electrical and telecommunications networks.

Our second major priority this year is to ensure a consistently high quality of customer experience in our front offices.

The vehicle for this programme is the Moetapele initiative, which we launched at the Edenvale office in May 2015.

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We are purposefully rolling out this initiative starting at our problem offices, those which have attracted the most complaints from clients.

Moetapele involves totally rethinking the way we work, and restructuring the layout and processes of these offices to make them more efficient.

It includes specialised training and support to front office managers and staff to ensure they are professional, capable, and committed to delivering a high quality experience every time.

Our third priority is the establishment of an effective Border Management Agency (BMA) in the 2016 / 2017 financial year.

We have developed a model, approved by Cabinet, for a specialised agency which will significantly improve the management of our ports of entry and borderline.

A related and fourth priority is the revamp of the physical and systems infrastructure of 6 key land ports of entry at Beit Bridge, Lebombo, Kopfontein, Oshoek, Ficksburg Bridge and Maseru Bridge.

Our fifth and final priority is the comprehensive review of our International Migration policy.

Last year we began a total review of the out-dated 1999 White Paper on International Migration; this process is now at an advanced stage.

While it would be premature to outline specific policy positions, I can promise this house and the nation at large, that we will emerge with a modern, progressive and robust policy on International Migration.

It will take into account the enormous current and potential contribution of immigrants to our society, and our connectedness with the rest of the world, while minimizing associated risks and protecting our national interests.

I wanted to give you a brief overview of where the Department is going.

Allow me now to zoom in on some specific areas where we will require your support in the coming months.

As you know, early birth registration has been a major focus for the Department in recent years.

The best and only way to safeguard the identity and status of every citizen, and ensure an accurate National Population Register, is to register the birth of every child as early as possible.

This is why the law now requires that the birth of every child be registered within 30 days.

We have made great strides in entrenching early registration of birth, with most births now registered early, up from less than half of birth registered early several years ago.

We can and will get this to 100% with your support.

We now have Home Affairs offices or officials visiting 389 health facilities around the country, so parents can obtain an unabridged birth certificate for their children before leaving the hospital.

This saves them a trip to a Home Affairs office later on.

All parents need to do is bring their IDs with them to the hospital, and a name for the baby.

If you are not sure what gender the baby will be, bring two sets of baby names just in case.

We need you to continue to help us entrench early registration of birth as a norm in our society.

Please spread this message.

Register the birth of your child before leaving the hospital, or within 30 days at a Home Affairs office.

It is for the good of your child, and ensures her identity, citizenship status and rights are protected.

It is also the law.

Linked to our promotion of early registration of birth, is our drive to end late registration of birth (or LRB) as a common practice by the end of this year.

LRB is a loophole into the NPR that must be closed.

LRB was necessary early in our democracy because of the huge backlog in civic registration.

Thanks to the National Population Registration campaign led by our Department, and supported by our valued stakeholder forums, the vast majority of South Africans have now had their births and identities registered.

LRB has become an opportunity for non-South Africans to fraudulently attempt to obtain South African citizenship, aided by unscrupulous South Africans.

After December 31st, 2015, late registration of birth will become extremely difficult.

We will increase the exhaustive checks, investigation and verification that we do on each LRB application.

We need your help to spread the word that LRB is coming to an end, and those few genuine South Africans who have not had their births registered, should do so before December 31st to save themselves any difficulty.

Finally, we ask you to continue to lead the project of nation building and social cohesion, by rejecting xenophobic attitudes, and integrating immigrants into your communities.

We need you:

§  to help us move from a zero sum mentality where we view immigrants working in the country as taking opportunities from South Africans, to one which recognizes that immigrants help us grow our economy and create jobs through their contributions as purchasers of South African goods, entrepreneurs, employers,  employees and taxpayers;

§  to help us shift from attitudes rooted in ignorance and fear of the other, to attitudes of humanist and Pan-Africanist solidarity, rooted in the values of Ubuntu, the Freedom Charter, and the Constitution;

§  to reframe the nation-building debate, from one which seeks to unite Africans, coloureds, Indians and whites, to one which expands to include those new South Africans from all over the African continent and world;

§  to help others recognize that our world is one based on vast, deep and complex human connections, and that those societies which harness these positively will be more stable, dynamic and prosperous than those which resist, distrust and turn away from these connections;

§  to insist society acknowledge the enormous positive role that the immigrants play in our society on a daily basis, and not fixate on the few who break the law;

§  to remind society that crime is no more wrong when the perpetrator is an immigrant, and no less wrong when the perpetrator is South African;

We need you to help us explode a debate which seems to be based on the assumption that South Africans are not migrants, by emphasizing that you too may one day live, work or study in another country, and would like to be treated humanely, welcomed warmly and integrated socially in your destination countries.

With your help we will move beyond the status quo, and build a South Africa of the future, which is big enough to accommodate all those people of good faith who wish to come here and experience the unique beauty, vibrancy, and humanity of our country.

Thank you for your attention.

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