Acting Director-General Thulani Mavuso and Home Affairs staff
Members of the media
Ladies and gentlemen

Welcome and thank you for coming to this media briefing. It has been good interacting with some of you over the past two months. At Home Affairs, we are an institution which thrives on collaboration and we appreciate the critical engagements we are having with the media. Other critical partnerships are the ones we form with provincial, local governments. We can fully contribute to growing South Africa if we work with others towards this goal.

This briefing is to report on how the extension of operational hours at front offices impacted on provision of services to citizens and to share traveller movement statistics at South African ports of entry for the 2018/19 festive season. We shall also provide an update on the White Paper on Home Affairs, which we gazetted on Friday 18 January, for public comment.

EXTENDED HOURS AT FRONT OFFICES FROM 2 TO 11 JANUARY 2019

In recent years we observed that our offices receive higher volumes of citizens in the period after the New Year’s celebration and the start of the school year. Learning from this, we extended the operating hours at our large and some medium offices from 02 to 11 January 2019. These offices across the country provided services to citizens and other clients from 07h00 in the morning to 19h00 in the evening.

Extending office hours benefitted citizens who were looking for enabling documents with which to register learners and university students and for matric exams. There are citizens who came to collect their IDs in order to cast their votes during the 2019 general elections. The intervention helped in testing the offices’ readiness to serve eligible voters during the voter registration weekend of 26 and 27 January 2019. Our people need identity documents in order to register to vote. Overall, operations went well. I have visited some offices in three provinces during this period and I’m satisfied that our offices are ready to assist citizens this coming weekend. I appeal to those who applied for identity documents to come and collect them. Most of the uncollected IDs are in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape. As at the beginning of this year, 297 000 IDs were laying uncollected at various office across the country. (Annexure attached)

Benefit for citizens

During the extended hours period, 116 404 citizens visited Home Affairs offices to access mostly the following services;

Applying for smart ID cards,
Collecting documents,
Getting Temporary ID Certificates,
Registering births,
Applying for Birth Certificates, and
Resolving various queries.
Most citizens visited our offices in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng. In the main, our analysis showed that citizens made use of this opportunity to apply for smart ID cards, and passports, and to collect same. The total number of applications received over the period for smart ID cards and passports is 82 383 and for collections the number is 29 137.

The table below presents a breakdown, per province, of ID applications and collections over the period of extended front office hours:
 
PROVINCE

SMART ID CARD & GREEN ID BOOK APPLICATIONS

COLLECTIONS

Eastern Cape

5755

3307

Free State

3659

2310

Gauteng

11740

4686

KwaZulu-Natal

11775

4108

Limpopo

8133

4288

Mpumalanga

2056

1361

Northern Cape

540

230

North West

2093

850

Western Cape

6060

2313

TOTAL

51811

23453

FESTIVE TRAVELLER MOVEMENT STATISTICS

We experienced high traveller movements across our ports of entry, with travelling influenced mainly by tourism, cross border employment, business and education programmes. Statistics on traveller movement are an important indicator on how busy our ports are, and how efficient we are in processing movements.

When comparing statistics for the period 01 December to 15 January over the past two years, we see a marginal increase of 0.61%.

This year we recorded 6 852 972 movements compared to 6 811 510 movements in 2018.

The top nationalities cleared at our ports of entry over this period were from Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Swaziland, Botswana, United Kingdom, Germany, USA, Namibia and Zambia.

OR Tambo International Airport cleared the highest volumes, with 997 167. It was followed by Beit bridge at 884 992, then Lebombo with 625 975, Ficksburg Bridge with 471 474 and Maseru Bridge which recorded 428 038.

I thank our travellers for their conduct during this period and all officials across government for meticulous planning, execution and responsiveness to operational matters during the 2018/19 festive season.

PUBLICATION OF A WHITE PAPER ON HOME AFFAIRS

We are digging the foundations for a modern, secure and professional Home Affairs. In this pursuit, we invite interested persons and organisations to submit written comments to the White Paper on Home Affairs by 18 February 2019.

The White Paper seeks to find sustainable solutions to the challenges we face, including those relating to long queues, staff shortages, infrastructure, office space, connectivity and networks.

After consideration of these comments, a final draft White Paper will be tabled to Cabinet for approval. Once approved, the White Paper will represent a solid policy platform that will define the mandate of the Department of Home Affairs and guide its legislation, strategy and operations.

The White Paper does not change the mandate of Home Affairs, but for the first time its full mandate is clearly set out. The first mandate is to manage the official identity and status of persons. The current National Population Register is being replaced by a secure and fully inclusive national identity system – NIS – which will reflect key data related to identity, civic and immigration status of all persons.

In a digital age, the NIS will be the backbone of a more integrated modern state that provides citizens and other clients fast access to efficient services. It will thus be a powerful enabler of inclusive economic development and will drastically reduce fraud and other related crimes.

The second mandate of the Department is to manage international migration. The 2017 White Paper on International Migration has been incorporated into the policy framework and aims to regulate international migration in our national interest and in the interest of a better and safer world. Migration can be a powerful driver of domestic and regional development, but this requires a state that has efficient systems, professional staff and the capacity to enforce its immigration laws.

The third mandate of Home Affairs is to manage asylum seekers and refugees. South Africa is committed to providing protection to persons who have a well-founded fear of persecution, as defined in the Refugees Act of 1998. This is a responsibility that should be shared with other countries, international bodies and domestic stakeholders.

An implementation strategy and a broad road map are provided that show how significant benefits can be progressively realised after the launching of a comprehensive Repositioning Programme.

Over the next financial year (2019/ 2020) the strategic focus of the Department will be on putting in place the enabling conditions for the launch of a full-scale Repositioning Programme. This will include detailed design and costing of a modern and secure Home Affairs in consultation with all stakeholders and partners. The White Paper details the main implementation phases of the Repositioning Programme. The envisioned end-state is the replacement of the old, legacy model and its replacement with a world-class government department that is properly resourced.

The White Paper is available on the following link;

http://www.dha.gov.za/files/dhawhitepaper.pdf

Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for attending this briefing, especially on a Sunday morning.