More than 70 percent of senior managers at home affairs did not have the necessary skills to perform their jobs, the department's DirectorGeneral Mavuso Msimang said on Friday.

Briefing the media in Cape Town, Msimang said a majority of the department's senior officials could not pass a competency test evaluating their capabilities.

"More than 70 percent of people did not meet the requirements of the test," Msimang said.

As part of the department's restructuring process, Msimang said the department would be assessing its entire workforce to establish whether employees had the necessary skills to execute their job functions.

Employees whose skills did not match their job description would be asked to apply for other positions.

"Where there is a complete mismatch, we will... encourage people to look at other options such as severance package," he said.

Earlier on Friday, Msimang told the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) that incompetence was one of the main factors contributing to poor financial management that had seen the department receiving negative reports from the Auditor General in successive years.

Scopa's chairman Themba Godi said the department's turnaround strategy was doomed to fail unless the problem of incompetent staff was decisively dealt with.

"As long as we have people who are not efficient, things will just collapse," he said.

While the department had improved on the service delivery front, including the turnaround time for issuing of identity documents and passports, its capacity to management finances had not improved.

The department recently received a qualified from the Auditor-General's office after failing to provide supporting documents for transaction worth millions of rands.