Date: 14/04/2010
Source: Independent Democrats
Title: ID: Mcgluwa: Speech by ID Member of Parliament on Home Affairs budget vote, National Assembly

Chairperson, Home Affairs has over the years become infamous as a Department plagued by corruption, scandals and poor service delivery.

The influence of this Department is far-reaching - it not only affects the lives of all South Africans, but also of the millions of people that enter our country from Africa and the rest of the world.

As such, it has been a relief for my party that someone of the calibre of Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has been put in charge of the Department and we have already seen some improvements.

These improvements have included a slow, yet convincing transformation to deliver a service that is efficient, accessible and corruption free.

This confidence, however, will never blind us to the qualified audits the Department gets year after year.

With the World Cup on our doorstep we can also proudly pronounce that in terms of our ports of entry, there is no doubt that we are ready - safe to say there are some minor challenges.

Chairperson, we support the increased budget for the Film and Publications Board, but we feel we could do more to clamp down on child pornography and the increasing sexual exploitation of children and women, especially as the World Cup nears.

I would also like to voice the ID's concern over the lack of representation of females in middle management.

Chairperson, I feel very strongly that the Minister owes us an explanation over what exactly has happened with the forensic audit reports on the "Who am I online" project and the review requested by SITA into the Smart Card project tender control process.

In addition to the upcoming Smart Card briefings by Sita on 20 April we demand to see the forensic audit report.

I would like to add, Chairperson, that it does not make sense that Sita, the very organisation the Minister herself said didn't "do as it was supposed to do", will now be giving us a briefing on the forensic report that none of us have even seen.

According to media reports, the Minister publicly condemned Sita for the delays in the Smart Card project.

And now we are expected to trust Sita to come here and give us its own sanitised version of the report.

With regards to the "Who am I online" project, why is it that the report that was given to the former Minister has remained hidden away since 10 February 2009?

What does the Department have to hide?

The ID supports this budget.

I thank you.