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This past weekend, 8 - 10 May 2010, the top leadership of the Department of Home Affairs (DHA), comprising of the Minister, the Deputy Minister, the top management had a retreat to discuss the future of the department. The retreat was also attended by the Chairpersons of the Stakeholder Forums from Sisonke, Ugu and Nquthu District Municipalities.

The Stakeholder Forums comprise of Mayors, Speakers, traditional leaders, community organisations, Community Development Workers, Community Health Workers, Home-based care givers, Ward Committees, other departments and DHA Officials. The establishment of the Stakeholder Forums started in 2009 and are yet to be established in all municipalities. They are established in order to assist the DHA in delivering its services, including in the distribution of IDs to applicants. They are able to identify problems relating to DHA and bring those to the department's attention. In that way, it closes the communication vacuum existing between community members and effectively the communities and the department.

These Stakeholder Forums play an oversight role in the department, and through them the department willingly submits itself to oversight as well as monitoring and evaluation by communities. In addition, these forums disseminate information relating to the department to communities and community members. This, of course, was vital given the ever-relevant question about how community leaders, such as councillors, traditional leaders and CDWs, can play a role in assisting communities to access DHA services, act as a bridge between the department and community members and help community members when they have problems relating to DHA.

From the reports presented by the Chairpersons of the Stakeholder Forums, there is already a robust engagement and community members are already receiving the assistance they need. These Forums also are very helpful to DHA when it comes to such issues as the distribution of IDs and the late registration of birth programme. DHA Officials also know that the Chairpersons of the Stakeholder Forums are the eyes and ears of the leadership on the ground, and have direct access to the top leadership.

Where they exist, they are already playing a crucial role in pursuit of the purposes for which they were established. For example, as a result of these Forums, some municipalities have taken the decisions to sponsor the photographs for their indigent constituents when they apply for identity documents for the first time.

Two things made this retreat important, namely:
First, the department, in line with the new outcomes-based government approach, has just adopted three new outcomes which were outlined in its 2010/11 - 2012/13 Strategic Plan. These outcomes are:

Secured South African citizenship and identity;
Immigration managed effectively and securely in the national interest including economic, social and cultural development; and
A service that is efficient, accessible and corruption free.

Secondly, the retreat took place just when the Minister has signed her performance agreement with the President, itself a novel idea in our system of government. What is now expected of the department is that it will come with an implementation plan for the minister's performance agreement, which should also be signed with the President in June and be assessed every six months. The minister is expected to sign a new performance agreement with the Director General in line with the agreement she entered into with the President. In turn the DG will do the same with those below him. In a way, the performance agreement is not just the Minister's but also that of the entire department.
At the retreat, two issues sparked an interesting debate - namely; the need to open dialogue on the strategic vision of the department; and, a statement that related to establishing a transformed Department of Home Affairs. The question that arose out of this was: what a transformed department means and whether such an ideal state could ever be achieved!

It would not be worthwhile to repeat the already known problems of the Department of Home Affairs. Neither would it be of any use to begin to tabulate all the achievements recorded since the advent of the turnaround strategy in 2007. It would suffice to simply say that many achievements have been recorded and many lessons have been learnt, and yet many challenges still remain.

The second item on the first day of the retreat was a report on the surprise visits to Home Affairs offices in Pietermaritzburg, Durban, eThongathi (Tongaat) and KwaDukuza (Stanger) by the leadership. This was important to ensure that the leadership could sum up their experiences in the frontline offices and reflect on what interventions are needed where problems were encountered. This would ensure that visitations to the frontline do not become just a hollow or cosmetic exercise. Something concrete must emerge out of these.

Whilst there are clearly many improvements in the frontline offices, but there are still many challenges that continue to dog the department. These include poor leadership in some of these offices, basic things such as that there are many officials who still do not wear their nametags and yet the leadership in those offices do not take any punitive action against them. This important element of service delivery is still frowned upon in many offices and is not enforced by the leadership at that level. Some among our leadership, especially at regional and district levels, have no job descriptions and their performance does not get managed and monitored. The Department must have a rigorous recruitment policy for managers at all levels.

From the visits, it was clear that there are offices which need to be prioritised for an urgent turnaround. These are offices such as Pietermaritzburg, which is in the provincial capital and in a large municipality, which were identified as dysfunctional, thus needing urgent fixing within the shortest period of time. It was decided that these offices should be turned around within 6 months through, amongst other things, overhauling the management of those offices, implementing a change management system, placing some officials through disciplinary processes.

Besides these, there were also the recurring issues such as the failure by our frontline offices to resolve such issues as duplicates and applications that take forever to return back to the applicants. It still takes some people years to get a print-out of a birth certificate of their children, or their identity document books and have rectifications done properly and timely on their documents.

Would resolving these questions amount to having a transformed department� or should the Department of Home Affairs set itself the target to be a permanently transforming department? What would be the end-result of a transformed department? Can a department such as Home Affairs, with ever-evolving challenges ever reach that stage?

To imagine a transformed department seems to be predicated on a wrong notion that there may or will come a time when Department of Home Affairs needs no further transformation. What is done today to solve yesterday's problems will create new challenges and dynamics that will require new permutations tomorrow. A vision cast-in-stone cannot be developed or even achieved.

These are the issues that must constitute an ongoing dialogue about a transforming the Department of Home Affairs; about its strategic vision. There is a vast difference between a vision, which is a medium-to-long-term high-level plan and cosmetic changes that must be done from time to time, or the stepping stones that must be put in place to achieve the vision.

The Department of Home Affairs still has a long way to go to achieve common norms and standards for its offices. This relates to how services are rendered as well as the physical infrastructure. Some of these problems would be resolved through the recruitment strategy of the department; others through the Learning Academy that is being established by the department and even through the penalties for managers and staff.

Programmes are afoot to address the 5 challenges identified during the intervention by the Departments of Public Service and Administration, the Public Service Commission and the National Treasury, which are, leadership and management, people and human resources, service delivery, information technology and financial administration. There is still a long way to go towards the fulfilment of these challenges, but massive headways have been made.

During the previous financial year, 21 new offices were built; 10 more shall be built this year and more shall be upgraded. This will make Home Affairs accessible to as many South Africans as possible. There has further been an aggressive campaign using mobile units and four-wheel drives to access rural areas and schools. The Retreat decided that Home Affairs must to the extent possible strive to extend its footprint along municipal lines to enhance accessibility.

With the National Population Registration Campaign, hundreds of thousands of South Africans without birth certificates and identity documents have been reached and millions will be reached before the end of this financial year. The intention is to ensure that every child is registered for birth within 30 days to a year of birth and every South African of 16 years and above has their identity documents.

This will enable the department finally to shut down the Late Registration of Birth (LRB) process during which we had registered 1,147 000 children and adults, 354 588 of which was through the late registration of birth process. Due to the intensity of the campaign, we issued 834 353 identity documents to first time applicants which is 200 000 more in number than in the previous year.

This will enable us to ensure that there is one entry point into the National Population Register and thus eliminate the instances of fraud and corruption that the department has been experiencing. Perhaps, time will prove that this was the most important campaign the Department of Home Affairs ever had to implement. Its success is a must and failure is not an option. Its success will also place before the rest of government statistics vital to national planning.

Once we can register every child born in South Africa, it would become easier to know how many children will start school in 7 years time, or how many children need social grants or health care. This also means that the identity document campaign has started and there will not be an identity document campaign ahead of local elections in 2011.

Part of demonstrating our commitment to service to the people, the top management shall publish their mobile numbers so that the members of the public can call them anytime they have challenges involving the Department of Home Affairs services.

This brings us back again to the question: what is the vision of the Department of Home Affairs that we want? To arrive at an answer to this question, the leadership of the department decided that we should open a dialogue to engage with the rest of South Africans on what should constitute this vision.

In part, this has been commenced with in the establishment of the Stakeholder Forums in District Municipalities. Whilst these Forums are established to resolve practical problems involving Home Affairs faced in the communities, they should and will also make a profound input in shaping the vision of this department.

Furthermore, it finds expression in the consultation that has started with the leadership of COSATU on issues of international migration. Again, in this regard, whilst such consultation was started to resolve some policy issues, it will have a major impact on the shaping of the vision of the department. Further consultations shall be held with other stakeholders during the course of the year.

Everywhere, this matter must be discussed. The Department of Home Affairs is central to the lives of South Africans, from the cradle to the grave. How it should look like in future and what it should in future do should be a matter of interest to all South Africans.

Again, to clarify this issue, this dialogue on the Department of Home Affairs' vision does not mean the turnaround must stop and wait for this vision. The turnaround continues. We are not going to halt the transformation of the department whilst waiting for a vision.