Date: 12/04/2005
Source: Ministry of Home Affairs
Title: Mapisa-Nqakula: Launch of National Immigration Branch
Introductory remarks by Hon NN Mapisa-Nqakula, Minister of Home Affairs, on the occasion of the launch of the National Immigration Branch, Cape Town
President Thabo Mbeki
Deputy Minister Malusi Gigaba
Executive Mayor of Cape Town, Nomaindia Mfeketo
Our New Director General, Jeff Maqetuka
Former DG, Barry Gilder who put this process in motion before he joined NICCOC
Chairperson of both the Parliamentary Committees of Home Affairs and Foreign Affairs
Members of Parliament
DDGs and Senior Managers of our Department
Friends
I must welcome and thank our President, cde Thabo Mbeki, for taking time from his many engagements to be with us here this morning. As always we are grateful that we can always count on your support and your presence here adds more impetus on the magnitude of the task we are carrying out today.
In 2002, when I joined the Department of Home Affairs, my induction started with a visit to our border posts and other ports of entry. Just from looking at these ports, only from their infrastructure and appearance, I started getting an uneasy sense about the nature of the challenges that we will face in the transformation of our immigration services. This was before my interaction at the strategic and operational levels regarding policy and systems challenges.
The challenges themselves were going to be daunting. Beyond just the capacity issues, we are confronted with problems regarding trafficking, facilitation, xenophobia, irregular and illegal immigration, lack of integration with neighbouring states, growing levels of corruption, a formerly isolated economy and the porous nature of our borders.
South Africa's newly established democracy ten years ago created unprecedented levels of interaction with other nations of the world and placed us at the centre of the rebuilding of our continent.
Our Immigration regime as initially designed before the advent of our democracy was obviously not going to be relevant or adequate in addressing these new sets of challenges. By their own nature these challenges had an impact on the rest of our work as a department.
We have spent the past year or so trying to address the policy basis for a new immigration regime for our country. This is by no means near the end, but key strides have been made in this regard. We are confident, Mr President, that the overall direction we have taken in this regard has laid the necessary foundation. It is on that foundation that we are building, starting with the events of today.
Our new policy interventions are aimed at building an immigration policy that is responsive to both the operational and strategic challenges which I have already alluded to. In the main we require a policy that facilitates legal and regulated movement of people to our country, attracts much needed skills, boosts tourism, and encourages direct foreign investment. At the same time this policy should be in line with our quest for friendly and cooperative coexistence with our neighbours and the other nations globally.
About twelve months ago, during our budget vote in Parliament we made a promise to the country that the time has come for us to tackle the problems in the department of Home Affairs with renewed enthusiasm. We had acknowledged even then, that this undertaking that we were making was in itself a serious challenge as the problems we face might look insurmountable. We then announced a whole range of plans that we will put in place to lay the foundation to address such challenges.
Everything that we have been doing since then has been about us moving a step further towards delivering on our undertakings.
I had requested the Department to deliver to us a tangible strategy that takes into consideration our political commitments and service delivery targets we have made. I also impressed upon our new team of managers that we did not have a lot of time to realise some of the key challenges we have set ourselves. These challenges are complex and are not going to only require a quick fix approach. One of such challenges was to create the necessary capacity in the form of infrastructure and people to be able to address these challenges head on. This capacity was inadequate in all key areas of our work, but particularly within our immigration section. The section was headed by a director, with immigration officers who received training for three weeks, were inadequately equipped, under-resourced and not given enough attention as key strategic area of work for the Department. I knew the seriousness of the implications of this situation for our country and this gave me a lot of sleepless nights.
We have now established a full leadership core to head this branch at a national level, we have sought to streamline operations and standardised procedures and we have employed some technological solutions to enhance these interventions.
The challenge of addressing illegal and irregular entry into our country remains with us even as we launch this branch today. Some aspects of this problem will be addressed by the operational interventions we are making here; others will be resolved through diplomatic engagements and others through further refining of policy.
In this regard I will like to indicate that on Friday we will sign a visa waiver agreement with Mozambique, wherein certain categories of travellers from both our countries will be exempted from visa requirements for thirty days to allow for easy processing of their entry. This is the main is meant to encourage legal instead of illegal entry, and to keep proper record and tracking of all people who come into the country.
Having said this, let me repeat what I have said on several occasions, that we are refining policy to ensure that people who need to come into our country should do so conveniently, but that those who however choose to use illegal means to enter will might our full strength of the law.
We are serious about of intention to strengthen the capacity we have to deal with this category of people at all levels.
Programme Director, in the main, our department manages two core functions; the one is about the services that we give to the citizens of our country such as IDs, birth and death certificates and passports.
The other is a service that has to do with how we regulate the entry and exit of foreign nationals who come into our country. This second aspect of our work which will be located in the new National Immigration Branch is what we have been working to reorganise in the past 10 months or so.
Today we unveil a product of the hard work that went into the conceptualisation, the planning and the birth of the new NIB.
I am particularly grateful to the many hours and large amounts of energy that our officials have put into this work and for the input made by the different stakeholders in ensuring that this work is accomplished.
Most of these inputs have helped us understand and share in the experiences that our clients have had when they interacted with our immigration officials and policies at all levels. We have taken into account most of these inputs in enriching the design of our new branch.
Mr. President, I must also report that we have ensured in this process that in its operation, the new branch will complement many other aspects of Government's overall programme, thereby fully integrating this part of our work with what the rest of Government is doing. We need to allay the fears that what we are launching here today is another police force for the country and rather to say that the role of our immigration officers should be one that complements established law enforcement agencies that already exist in our country.
I am sure that your presence here further demonstrates this reinforcement role that the new branch will play in the security set up of our country.
We are unveiling here a new branch complete with its new operation methods, its uniforms, its branding, equipment, policy initiatives and training modules. We will also launch the new smart ID card for refugees that have new security features in order to address some of the problems relating to how we manage our international obligation for the protection of those who are forced by circumstances to flee their land of birth.
None of these interventions we are making can succeed if they are implemented in isolation to the broader government strategies. It is very important, Programme Director, for us to understand this launch within the context of our quest to improve the levels of service delivery within the Department and the public service in general.
In this regard, I should also highlight that we are finalising processes towards the roll out of the first 4 million smart ID cards for South Africa by June next year. We have installed computers and connected in 68 hospitals to enable convenient registration of child birth and death cases in partnership with the Department of Health. In the coming few weeks, we will unveil 67 new state of the art mobile units fully equipped with computers and connectivity via satellite to be deployed to the rural areas where people do not have access to Home Affairs services.
We are confident that there will be a number of positive reports that will come from the public, from investors, tourists, diplomats and other visitors to our shores about the work of the National Immigration Branch.
I have emphasised however that in whatever we do, let our success not be judged by the number of glitzy functions and workshops we have, but on the impact it has on the lives of our people and in building our country.
At this point I would like to invite our President, cde Thabo Mbeki to address us.
Thank you.
Enquiries: Nkosana Sibuyi
Cell: 082 88 66 708
Tel: (012) 810 7338
E-mail: Nkosana.Sibuyi@dha.gov.za
Issued by: Ministry of Home Affairs
12 April 2005
Source: Ministry of Home Affairs
Title: Mapisa-Nqakula: Launch of National Immigration Branch
Introductory remarks by Hon NN Mapisa-Nqakula, Minister of Home Affairs, on the occasion of the launch of the National Immigration Branch, Cape Town
President Thabo Mbeki
Deputy Minister Malusi Gigaba
Executive Mayor of Cape Town, Nomaindia Mfeketo
Our New Director General, Jeff Maqetuka
Former DG, Barry Gilder who put this process in motion before he joined NICCOC
Chairperson of both the Parliamentary Committees of Home Affairs and Foreign Affairs
Members of Parliament
DDGs and Senior Managers of our Department
Friends
I must welcome and thank our President, cde Thabo Mbeki, for taking time from his many engagements to be with us here this morning. As always we are grateful that we can always count on your support and your presence here adds more impetus on the magnitude of the task we are carrying out today.
In 2002, when I joined the Department of Home Affairs, my induction started with a visit to our border posts and other ports of entry. Just from looking at these ports, only from their infrastructure and appearance, I started getting an uneasy sense about the nature of the challenges that we will face in the transformation of our immigration services. This was before my interaction at the strategic and operational levels regarding policy and systems challenges.
The challenges themselves were going to be daunting. Beyond just the capacity issues, we are confronted with problems regarding trafficking, facilitation, xenophobia, irregular and illegal immigration, lack of integration with neighbouring states, growing levels of corruption, a formerly isolated economy and the porous nature of our borders.
South Africa's newly established democracy ten years ago created unprecedented levels of interaction with other nations of the world and placed us at the centre of the rebuilding of our continent.
Our Immigration regime as initially designed before the advent of our democracy was obviously not going to be relevant or adequate in addressing these new sets of challenges. By their own nature these challenges had an impact on the rest of our work as a department.
We have spent the past year or so trying to address the policy basis for a new immigration regime for our country. This is by no means near the end, but key strides have been made in this regard. We are confident, Mr President, that the overall direction we have taken in this regard has laid the necessary foundation. It is on that foundation that we are building, starting with the events of today.
Our new policy interventions are aimed at building an immigration policy that is responsive to both the operational and strategic challenges which I have already alluded to. In the main we require a policy that facilitates legal and regulated movement of people to our country, attracts much needed skills, boosts tourism, and encourages direct foreign investment. At the same time this policy should be in line with our quest for friendly and cooperative coexistence with our neighbours and the other nations globally.
About twelve months ago, during our budget vote in Parliament we made a promise to the country that the time has come for us to tackle the problems in the department of Home Affairs with renewed enthusiasm. We had acknowledged even then, that this undertaking that we were making was in itself a serious challenge as the problems we face might look insurmountable. We then announced a whole range of plans that we will put in place to lay the foundation to address such challenges.
Everything that we have been doing since then has been about us moving a step further towards delivering on our undertakings.
I had requested the Department to deliver to us a tangible strategy that takes into consideration our political commitments and service delivery targets we have made. I also impressed upon our new team of managers that we did not have a lot of time to realise some of the key challenges we have set ourselves. These challenges are complex and are not going to only require a quick fix approach. One of such challenges was to create the necessary capacity in the form of infrastructure and people to be able to address these challenges head on. This capacity was inadequate in all key areas of our work, but particularly within our immigration section. The section was headed by a director, with immigration officers who received training for three weeks, were inadequately equipped, under-resourced and not given enough attention as key strategic area of work for the Department. I knew the seriousness of the implications of this situation for our country and this gave me a lot of sleepless nights.
We have now established a full leadership core to head this branch at a national level, we have sought to streamline operations and standardised procedures and we have employed some technological solutions to enhance these interventions.
The challenge of addressing illegal and irregular entry into our country remains with us even as we launch this branch today. Some aspects of this problem will be addressed by the operational interventions we are making here; others will be resolved through diplomatic engagements and others through further refining of policy.
In this regard I will like to indicate that on Friday we will sign a visa waiver agreement with Mozambique, wherein certain categories of travellers from both our countries will be exempted from visa requirements for thirty days to allow for easy processing of their entry. This is the main is meant to encourage legal instead of illegal entry, and to keep proper record and tracking of all people who come into the country.
Having said this, let me repeat what I have said on several occasions, that we are refining policy to ensure that people who need to come into our country should do so conveniently, but that those who however choose to use illegal means to enter will might our full strength of the law.
We are serious about of intention to strengthen the capacity we have to deal with this category of people at all levels.
Programme Director, in the main, our department manages two core functions; the one is about the services that we give to the citizens of our country such as IDs, birth and death certificates and passports.
The other is a service that has to do with how we regulate the entry and exit of foreign nationals who come into our country. This second aspect of our work which will be located in the new National Immigration Branch is what we have been working to reorganise in the past 10 months or so.
Today we unveil a product of the hard work that went into the conceptualisation, the planning and the birth of the new NIB.
I am particularly grateful to the many hours and large amounts of energy that our officials have put into this work and for the input made by the different stakeholders in ensuring that this work is accomplished.
Most of these inputs have helped us understand and share in the experiences that our clients have had when they interacted with our immigration officials and policies at all levels. We have taken into account most of these inputs in enriching the design of our new branch.
Mr. President, I must also report that we have ensured in this process that in its operation, the new branch will complement many other aspects of Government's overall programme, thereby fully integrating this part of our work with what the rest of Government is doing. We need to allay the fears that what we are launching here today is another police force for the country and rather to say that the role of our immigration officers should be one that complements established law enforcement agencies that already exist in our country.
I am sure that your presence here further demonstrates this reinforcement role that the new branch will play in the security set up of our country.
We are unveiling here a new branch complete with its new operation methods, its uniforms, its branding, equipment, policy initiatives and training modules. We will also launch the new smart ID card for refugees that have new security features in order to address some of the problems relating to how we manage our international obligation for the protection of those who are forced by circumstances to flee their land of birth.
None of these interventions we are making can succeed if they are implemented in isolation to the broader government strategies. It is very important, Programme Director, for us to understand this launch within the context of our quest to improve the levels of service delivery within the Department and the public service in general.
In this regard, I should also highlight that we are finalising processes towards the roll out of the first 4 million smart ID cards for South Africa by June next year. We have installed computers and connected in 68 hospitals to enable convenient registration of child birth and death cases in partnership with the Department of Health. In the coming few weeks, we will unveil 67 new state of the art mobile units fully equipped with computers and connectivity via satellite to be deployed to the rural areas where people do not have access to Home Affairs services.
We are confident that there will be a number of positive reports that will come from the public, from investors, tourists, diplomats and other visitors to our shores about the work of the National Immigration Branch.
I have emphasised however that in whatever we do, let our success not be judged by the number of glitzy functions and workshops we have, but on the impact it has on the lives of our people and in building our country.
At this point I would like to invite our President, cde Thabo Mbeki to address us.
Thank you.
Enquiries: Nkosana Sibuyi
Cell: 082 88 66 708
Tel: (012) 810 7338
E-mail: Nkosana.Sibuyi@dha.gov.za
Issued by: Ministry of Home Affairs
12 April 2005
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