Department of Home Affairs & GPW Annual Report 2021/22, with Minister and Deputy Minister

Home Affairs

18 October 2022
Chairperson: Mr M Chabane (ANC)
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Meeting Summary

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Home Affairs

The Committee met on a virtual platform to receive briefings from the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) and the Government Printing Works (GPW) on their annual reports and annual financial statements for the 2021/22 financial year.

The Committee discussed the initial GPW computer system crash that occurred on 4 February 2021 and the subsequent crashes in early 2022 which had led to the loss of critical data, including the tenders, e-Gazettes, and financial management system, emails and other technical systems. These system failures had contributed heavily to the GPW receiving a disclaimer audit opinion. The Committee asked about the reasons for the crash, the steps being taken to mitigate any further risks, and the AGSA exemption request relating to the limitation of scope findings, due to the absence of the general ledger. The Minister explained that the Ministerial Review Panel report recommended that a forensic investigation occur to determine the cause of the crash.

The Committee asked if government departments were required to use the GPW, as this would greatly assist it in increasing its revenue. The GPW confirmed that no legislation compelled government departments to use its services, but that they continued to engage with government departments and Southern African Development Community partners to grow the business.

The Committee commended the DHA's mobile unit initiative and agreed with the Department that more units needed to be acquired to assist in reducing the queues at Home Affairs offices, as well as assisting in reaching students and rural communities. The Branch Appointment Booking System (BABS) was also being rolled out to further assist with the queues.

The Committee raised concern over the challenge of stemming the flow of illegal immigrants into the country, and engaged on the issue of Smart ID Cards and unabridged birth certificates. The DHA responded that they were able to issue only three million cards a year, but that progress was being made. The Department of Basic Education was working with the DHA to ensure that matriculants received their identification documents before they sat for their final exams. The backlog of requests for unabridged birth certificates was also being addressed, since unabridged birth certificates had been issued to newborns since 2013. However, the Minister noted some social issues in this regard, as both parents needed to be present to issue an unabridged birth certificate, which was not possible for many South Africans.

Meeting report

Chairperson's opening remarks

The Chairperson said that this meeting would be for the Committee to be briefed by the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) and the Government Printing Works (GPW) on their annual reports in preparation for the Budgetary Review and Recommendations Reports (BRRR). The meeting had been postponed due to stakeholders being in Geneva on a government assignment. The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) and Auditor-General had already presented.

Minister's opening remarks

Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, Minister of Home Affairs, said that due to the fact that they had been away in Geneva at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' executive meeting, which had not been able to take place for the past two years, the three commissioners were now engaged in meetings that had been pre-arranged especially with the National Economic Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC) and the Department of Employment and Labour that could not be postponed for this meeting. He had excused them from this meeting, and he and the Director-General (DG) would be able to provide the Committee with the necessary information.

Mr Tommy Makhode, Director-General (DG), Department of Home Affairs (DHA) and Ms Alinah Fosi, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Government Printing Works (GPW), introduced their respective delegations.

The Minister said that a large part of the presentation would centre on the loss of data when the information communication technology (ICT) system collapsed. The financial section in the Department had been the hardest hit. When the system collapsed, it was determined that the data was not recoverable and could not be recollected before the audit was completed. The Auditor General (AG) could therefore not complete the audit, and in a case like this the AGSA would give a disclaimer until the data became available. He said that despite the collapse, the GPW had still made a profit and still managed to expand during this time. He had met with the AG on these matters, and the AG had received the report on the collapse. The GPW, AGSA and National Treasury (NT) were in discussions on the way forward to ensure that it did not affect the entity's audit outcomes for multiple years.

GPW's annual performance report

Ms Fosi said the tabling of this annual report was a year late due to the system failure and data losses experienced by the GPW on 4 February 2021 as a result of an EVA hardware crash, which hosted multiple servers containing critical data, including the tenders, e-Gazettes, Dynamics AX (the financial management system), emails and other technical systems.

Further system crashes occurred on 25 March 2022 and 1 April 2022, which wiped out the data captured from 2 September 2021 to 31 March 2022. The second data loss also eroded the data recaptured for February 2021 and March 2021. The data losses had a significant impact on the operations of GPW and the compilation of the 2020/21 annual financial statement (AFS).

GPW lost over half of its production capacity for the financial year, thereby negatively impacting its revenue base. The revenue was reduced from R1.559 billion to R745 million due to the national lockdown, and an overall performance of 78% was achieved against the targets set for this financial year.

The GPW received a disclaimer audit opinion for the 2020/21 AFS due to the data loss, which eroded the general ledger. The balances in the AFS were not supported by the general ledger, which resulted in a limitation of scope.

An audit action plan and matrix have been developed to address the findings to monitor progress in implementing the AGSA recommendations. The GPW had also met with the Offices of the Accountant General and the AG to obtain guidance and exemption relating to the limitation of scope findings, due to the absence of the general ledger.

The presentation highlighted the strategic risks of:

  • Lack of competitiveness in terms of efficiency and pricing;
  • Breach of ICT security systems;
  • Cyber security attacks;
  • Decline in fiscal resources;
  • Failure to complete the master plan within the set timeframe;
  • ICT continuity; and
  • Inability to attract, develop and retain critical skills.

The GPW also presented a plan to mitigate the risk of system collapse and data losses, which included implemented backup on three sites.

Lastly, they presented the implementation of the Ministerial Review Panel Report.

See attached for further details

Department of Home Affairs' annual performance report

Minister's comments

Minister Motsoaledi referred to the long-awaited DHA Bill, and said the state had been facing a capacity problem in terms of lawyers trained in drafting. The Green Paper that was part of the annual performance plan (APP) was in its advanced stages, and a policy had been developed on overhauling the whole immigration system of the country, instead of doing it in parts. The DHA’s biggest delivery model was going to be mobiles, and the presentation would outline how the mobiles worked. By the end of this month, the DHA would receive 15 extra mobiles from the factory in Port Elizabeth.

He wanted to address the issue of visa backlogs, as it had caused the papers to say that the DHA was slowing down the economy of the country. After COVID-19, most countries had a visa backlog, which was being addressed. He had met with the United States ambassador who had informed him that their backlog was so large that they would be able to deal with only half of it by the end of 2022.

APP highlights

Mr Makhode said the Department had 29 APP targets planned for 2021/22, of which 20 (69%) were achieved and nine (31%) were not achieved. Immigration affairs and institutional support transfers had the highest percentage of targets not achieved.

Targets not achieved included the DHA Bill submission to Cabinet, and the Border Management Act (BMA) could not be rolled-out to 11 ports of entry as the Section 97 Proclamation, through which frontline functions would have been incorporated into the BMA, was not finalised.

The Department received an unqualified audit with findings. Fruitless and wasteful expenditure decreased from R640 000 to R153 000. Irregular expenditure increased from R507 million to R555 million.

The following challenges continued to constrain the optimal performance of the DHA:

  • Inadequate financial and human resources;
  • Front office facilities management;
  • IT infrastructure vandalism which was beyond the resources of telecommunications companies and the State Information Technology Agency (SITA); and
  • Poor management of switching centres by SITA.

The DHA procured additional 20 mobiles for the 2022/23 financial year to increase its mobile footprint to 130 units. Implementing the Branch Appointment Booking System (BABS) reduced long queues and improved client satisfaction. To date, it has been rolled out to 130 offices countrywide and they are currently developing the collection option.

See attached for further details

Discussion

Mr K Pillay (ANC) said that previously the GPW was not able to be audited, and when they asked for an exemption, it meant that there would not be any accountability whatsoever for that financial year. Once one started having delays, one ended up having more than one year’s delays. The GPW may be doing exceptional work, but if there were no records to audit, it became a problem. He said it was not the first time that records were lost or that systems crashed, and asked how and why the system crashed this time around. What were the contingency plans to ensure that it would not happen again?

He asked for an update on the DHA's "smart" offices and the booking system. He thanked the Minister for being able to secure and roll out more mobile trucks, and asked for an update on the graduate programme dealing with digitalisation. He proposed that a dedicated mobile unit be created for schools and senior citizens; ideally, every district should have its own mobile unit at some point.

Ms A Khanyile (DA) said that the GPW data loss was caused by a power outage, and asked for confirmation of this fact. The reason for this question was that a panel appointed by the Minister to investigate the incident had found no power outages in the City of Tshwane on the day the incident occurred.

On the decline in revenue, she noted that no regulation required government departments to print with the GPW, and asked if this was the case with the Traffic Department as well, as she was under the impression it had to be done by the GPW due to security measures. How would the GPW increase its profitability going forward?

She acknowledged the work the DHA was doing on immigration, but said that there had been no response to queries made, and the email address the Minister provided had not assisted. Irregular expenditure had increased to R555 million, mainly due to the Appointment Booking Information System (ABIS), and asked when this system had been procured and when its installation would be completed. She said there were still many complaints coming from the communities about the long queues at DHA offices, although ABIS had been rolled out to 130 offices. How would the Department ensure that it dealt adequately with the issue of long queues? When would ABIS be rolled out to the other outstanding offices? She asked how many unabridged birth certificate applications the Department was getting in a year, as there were a number of complaints coming from the community on this as well.

Ms M Molekwa (ANC) said she hoped that the action plan would be able to address the challenges raised in the audit outcome in order to achieve a clean audit outcome in the future.

Ms L van der Merwe (IFP) said that the situation at the GPW seemed dire and the fact that there had been two data crashes just before annual financial reports were due was concerning. The Minister and DG must guide the entity to ensure that similar situations do not prevail, and that the action plans are implemented. On the loss in revenue, she asked how far the GPW had gone to increase their footprint in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and by bringing in additional departments that they were doing work for.

She asked if the Minister and DG believed that they had been able to instill a culture of consequence management at the DHA. Had consequence management improved from the previous audit to date? How many of the AG’s previous findings had been implemented, and how many were not implemented, and why? She welcomed the inclusion of the audit action plans in the quarterly reports going forward, but said that it had been mentioned before but not implemented. On the inadequate human and financial resources, she asked if all key posts had now been filled.

She pointed out that although the Department had achieved 100% of its targets, the lived experiences of South Africans interacting with the DHA were not necessarily positive. She had tried to contact the Department before the meeting, but had found that the call centre number on the website was not working. On the e-Home Affairs services, the one-time pin (OTP) was not sent upon registering, so one could not continue using the services. The Department needed to focus more on this to make a difference on the ground, not just on paper.

On immigration affairs, she applauded the Department for its overachievement of targets concerning inspections. She pointed out that immigration was a very big topic in the country at the moment, and that South Africans were generally not happy with the way that the DHA was managing immigration affairs, so again, the achievements on paper did not translate into the lived experiences of South Africans, especially when it came to the prevalence of illegal migrants or undocumented migrants within the communities. The DHA mission and vision mentioned that it needed to contribute to social cohesion and safe communities, but this vision could not be achieved if there was a migrant crisis. She asked how the Department planned to solve this crisis besides conducting inspections, and questioned whether amending legislation would be enough to solve the current problem. Had all the relevant institutions come on board regarding the Border Management Agency (BMA)?

Referring to the ABIS and the e-Visa, she said there were concerns over the IT systems within the Department and the significant deficiencies within the IT department which were causing poor project management. How would this be addressed?

Mr A Roos (DA) said that when reading the GPW annual report, there did not seem to be any remorse or acknowledgement that something serious had happened, and that it should just be accepted. The Committee needed to be more specific in its recommendations, particularly regarding what would happen if the issues were not resolved. He asked how many system failures there had been and if the data recovery had to start from scratch on each occasion. What was the expenditure to date on recovering this data? What was the budgeted expenditure going forward, and when was it expected to be completed? There was a year between the first loss of data and the second crash, so why was there still no working backup? Why did mandatory stocktaking not occur, considering how important it was for a security printer? How did the GPW ensure that things did not get stolen?

He noted that the Minister had recently announced that passport costs would be increased by 50% to 100%, citing COVID-19 and the loss of income. The GPW employee benefits had increased by 43% and professional services had increased by 250%, and if those increases had not happened, the GPW would not have made a loss. How could the GPW explain these increases in benefits at a time when they knew revenue would nosedive? What professional services were being used to such an extent while most staff were sitting at home due to COVID-19?

He congratulated the Department on the births registered within 30 days and for exceeding the Smart ID target. He said that once people managed to get to the front of the queues and submit an application, it did seem to be produced quickly. He recalled that in 2019, the Minister had said that all clinics and health facilities should get Home Affairs services, and now that lockdown was over, what was the status of this project, and when would it be completed? What was the challenge with the issue of naturalised citizens getting Smart ID cards? He agreed with Mr Pillay -- the Department of Education system indicated that there were almost 500 000 undocumented South African children at schools, and there were also a few thousand undocumented foreign children, so there was a need for an initiative to create mobile units for schools. An annual schedule needed to be created for how this would happen, while considering challenges like the need for the mother to be present, in which case they needed to be passed on to the nearest Home Affairs office.

He said that the AG had pointed out that outstanding fines were still not collected. How could airlines and bus services still continue to operate in South Africa when they had outstanding fines for bringing in persons that were not correctly documented, and what law reform was needed to stop this? On the Biometric Movement Control System (BMCS), it seemed that the DHA had a habit of testing these critical systems in a live environment and, in doing so, was rolling them out before they had been properly tested, which was leading to delays. He asked what the issues were with the system and when these issues would be resolved.

On the Central Adjudication Hub, he said that the understanding was that fraud had to be reduced by removing the evaluator as far from the applicant as possible, but this had now been reversed. What was the way forward on this? He noted the redevelopment of the six ports of entry, and that the request for proposal (RFP) was at Treasury. What regulatory mechanisms were included to ensure that private contractors could not charge whatever they wanted, because they would recoup some of their costs by charging travellers at these ports of entry?

Ms L Tito (EFF) said the GPW's budget review and recommendations report (BRRR) mentioned that the IT controls continued to require interventions which had a huge impact on operations. It was clear that the performance of daily controls needed a lot of improvement. Who was responsible for making sure that these things were done on time? She said that the GPW would be held to account for the completion of mitigation plans by March 2024, and would also be held to account for the completion of the data centre in the new GPW building by 2024.

Referring to consequence management, she asked if the official still on suspension received a full salary while on suspension. When had the forensic investigators been appointed to investigate and prevent system failures, and who was overseeing them to ensure that the job was being done? Why was the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) not printing all its ballot papers at the GPW? Were there plans to expand GPW’s business to other regions?

According to the DHA's BRRR, the development of an asylum seekers and refugee system had not been achieved, and she asked how far the Department was in finalising this system. She asked why laws and procedures were not being followed on the irregular expenditure that were written off and the R199 million in security tenders for which they were seeking condonement. Could the mobile trucks be sent to Home Affairs' offices when the systems were down, typically due to copper cable thefts, to assist in curbing the long queues? She said that more mobile trucks needed to be procured, as the potential to assist the DHA was large.

The Chairperson said that the Committee had carried out three oversight visits, and one by the independent task team appointed by the Minister to look into governance at the GPW. The presentation touched on areas of consequence management and other areas of progress, but not on areas of concern such as the financial position of the GPW and governance. He suggested that the GPW present to the Committee on why the "War Room" was being established, and what purpose it would serve. He asked what the management oversight board was, and what was required for its establishment, as it would strengthen the governance of the Department. How would it assist outside the ministerial team, as the Minister of Home Affairs presides over the GPW? How did the established investigations team reconcile with the task team that the Minister had appointed? How did the transformation initiatives contribute to economic participation, and how did it address areas such as green contracts? He noted that there were a number of multi-disciplinary investigation teams at the GPW, some of which had already delivered comprehensive reports. Would these teams be extending the scope of their work?

He applauded the mobile unit initiative, but said that it would not be enough and that there was insufficient budget for the programmes that were being planned. The Committee may need to lobby to assist in executing some of the programmes that had been mentioned, and more focus would need to be placed on the issues surrounding the IT systems and the long queues at Home Affairs offices. He asked the Minister to call the call centre or send in a complaint to test if it worked, and to understand the challenges that members of the community were facing.

GPW's response

Ms Fosi said that GPW took all of the challenges it faced very seriously, and had taken steps to pull the organisation together and mitigate the risks going forward to ensure that it did not face these challenges again. The GPW was requesting an exemption only in the areas in the annual financial statements where data had been lost, and it would continue to be held accountable for all its operations as a government entity. A migration plan had been put in place in the immediate short term to ensure that the pertinent issues were being addressed, and this was partly what had been presented in this meeting.

She said that the initial report had determined that the system failure had been due to a power surge, but internally it was established that it was a result of the hardware that had crashed. The EVA hardware hosted a number of critical servers that contained, among others, the financial management system. The GPW was also working to stabilise the infrastructure to ensure overall stability, and backups had been created as previously the backups had not been done properly, which was why the data could not be recovered.

She said no legislation required government departments to print with the GPW, and although there was a directive issued around 1976 for this purpose, there was nothing to enforce it. The GPW was now working to develop a Security Printing Bill. It has consulted with all the national and provincial departments, and by the end of this financial year, the consultative process should be finalised. The Bill would then be presented to the Minister and follow the draft legislature process so that it was promulgated as an Act that ensured the printing of state security documents with tamper-proof security features, something which the GPW had the capacity to do.

The GPW had consolidated all the audit reports, both internally and those from AGSA, from a couple of years ago into one document, and 75% of the findings contained in this document had been addressed. In meetings with the AG, they indicated that they were satisfied with the resolution of those findings. For the most recent audit, the GPW had developed another post-audit action plan, and would work closely with the AG to ensure that all of those findings were resolved.

On the question of SADC business prospects, she said that the GPW had consulted all SADC countries and other African countries, and that they had been able to secure new business. It was also consolidating its base to ensure more departments used its services.

She said there were controls in place as part of stocktaking to ensure that stocks were not stolen or used for fraudulent activities. ICT continued to require intervention because the migration plan was categorised as immediate, short and medium term, so most of the interventions could be achieved in the next couple of months. Some of the interventions had dependencies on procurement processes and therefore could not be attained without following an open tender process. The GPW had an internal controls committee that served to look into the strengthening of internal controls. The results were presented at audit and in committee, and guidance was provided on how the GPW was doing and how it could improve to achieve its targets.

They were working to ensure that the recruitment strategy and plan that had been put in place was implemented without fail, to ensure that they beefed up capacity in the areas where the GPW was the most vulnerable, such as in finance and ICT. They would also ensure that the migration of data happened as required when the new building was concluded. The refurbishment of the new head office had already started, and they would soon start with the construction of the master plan.

On consequence management, she said that the official on suspension was on precautionary suspension, pending the outcome of the investigation. Once the investigation report was finalised, the recommendations would be implemented.

The forensic investigation company had started in October and had been given a brief. It would be engaging with GPW staff and with the report. The report itself was the focus of the investigation, and every item that the report had raised would be investigated. The report would be presented to the Minister once concluded.

She thanked Members for the suggestion regarding the IEC, and said that the GPW was engaging with the IEC on this matter to ensure that some of the ballot paper processes could be printed by the GPW. She reiterated that the GPW took the work of the AGSA very seriously, which was why all of their comments had been incorporated into the report to ensure that they were dealt with decisively. A new director of legal services had been appointed, who would be working closely with labour relations and the investigators to assist with the investigations. Consequence management would be taken against anyone whose actions were identified as being adverse to the organisation. The audit matrix and the implementation of the audit report would also be monitored weekly.

She added that the "War Room" meetings with the SITA and DHA had been very helpful in achieving progress in the stabilisation project. There were a number of work streams that came to report in these meetings and were then held accountable. There had been a few delays from SITA, but progress had been attained, and that report would be compiled and sent to the Minister. She said that the Ministerial Advisory Board was recommended in the Public Service Act as a body that the Minister had the prerogative to appoint to provide advisory services to the Minister, and the process of appointing this board had begun. Once the board was appointed, it would advise the Minister and the executive committee on overall governance issues, including strategic and operational matters.

She said there was a clear need for a transformation strategy, so a culture audit was conducted, and the results were going to be used to transform the organisation. It would take it from its current state to the desired state, which was an entity that was able to obtain clean audits and deal with all its supply chain operations as well as audit matters -- an entity that staff wanted to work for and an entity that customers felt comfortable working with.

Mr Ian van der Merwe, Chief Financial Officer (CFO), GPW, said the exemption did not imply that the GPW did not want to present its financials, but had been a way of dealing with financials where it did not have underlying ledgers or sub-ledgers going forward. If this was not dealt with, it would mean that the GPW would not get out of the disclaimer position for the foreseeable future. Treasury had said that the 2021/2022 exemption request could not be granted, so the GPW had written to the Minister of Finance to request an exemption for 2022/2023. This related to the generally recognised accounting principles (GRAP) provisions that indicated that it was impractical to present comparative numbers. He explained that the request was, in essence, asking to use the balances that GPW had now as opening balances, and not to consider all the limitations that came with the general ledger.

On stock taking and the asset register, stock taking was done for 31 March 2022, and the AGSA and internal audit had been present at this count. The GPW had requested a subsequent count in September 2022 to validate some of these numbers. There were some big differences with the economic recovery programme (ERP) system that were being resolved with the ERP service provider, but it would be challenging to consolidate what was on the system and what the actual count showed. From the 31 March 2022 count, it was clear that the register needed to be reconstructed from scratch, which was why the GPW was engaging with a service provider to get a proper count of all the assets and a fair valuation on each of the assets -- and also to put them in the right locality. They would also look at the threshold of the assets. If it cost less than R7 000, it did not get recognised as an asset but got written off against expenditure. That would likely reduce the asset register from 21 000 items to about 4 000 items, which would represent about 95% of the asset register as it stood.

The increase in compensation was about R7 million from the previous financial year, and he would be happy to be advised on the concern over that. He explained that "professional service" referred to consultants, audit fees, and the engineering and maintenance support flown in to look at the machinery.

The GPW was working on the cell suppliers and evergreen contracts, but it was slow because the base from which it was working was low. They were working to align with the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) submission dates, and hoped to be in a position to do that by the 2022/2023 financial year. He acknowledged that there was a lot of work to do, especially with the AG and Treasury, on a number of matters.

Mr Zwelibanzi Gwiba, Chief Information Officer (CIO), GPW, said that the incident report had found that the cause of the ICT failure was a power failure, a lack of backup, and a lack of resources, maintenance and support for the ICT environment. They were working to address these issues fully, but interim measures had been put in place to ensure that there was not a vacuum of services but that the GPW could continue to operate. It was now keeping three or four sets of data to ensure that no data was lost. They were using the available computing power, as there was a global supply chain involved in the availability of computer power so the procurement process was delayed. The GPW had requested the DHA to lend them the computing power they had at BCX, so they had only the computing power and the disk backup, because it was loaned infrastructure from the DHA. This backup at BCX gave the GPW business resilience if there should be a system failure.

For maintenance and support, they extended the contracts to ensure that professional support was available and that support warrantees covered the infrastructure being utilised to ensure that the situation that the GPW had experienced with EVA was not repeated. They were also relying on SITA to assist and provide them with advice. They would also come to assess the interventions that have been put in place to ensure that the GPW had independent testing of the controls that had been put in place. The internal audit also sourced the services of auditors who were going to test these controls.

DHA's response

Mr Makhode said that most of the key vacancies had been filled, and that by 14 November, the first phase of ABIS would be implemented. Over the weekend of 16 October, the DHA had also been able to finalise the implementation of what was known as the "lava rock" phase.

The DHA now had an Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) comprised of all the relevant ministers. This enabled it to finalise and implement protocols, because the decisions were taken at the IMC which the Minister of Home Affairs chaired. Below the IMC, there was a forum comprised of all the DGs of affected departments, as well as SARS and other relevant entities, which allowed the Minister to engage extensively with his counterparts and other departments and therefore finalise the protocols.

The shortage of skills in the IT area remained a concern for the Department. It had started engaging with other entities, such as SARS, to look specifically at the issues involving project management, and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) would also be offering skills to assist the Department.

The DHA had been able to deal with quite a lot of the findings of the AG. For example, it has been able to finalise nearly 38 internal policies. Another recurring finding was the payments that the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) collected on behalf of the DHA. This year, around R50 million in revenue was paid to the DHA.

On the call centre issue, he said there were limited lines to the centre, which was an issue that needed to be looked into.

Regarding consequence management, the DHA appeared before the Committee on 16 August and engaged on disciplinary matters in the Department. At that stage, 22 level six employees faced disciplinary action, most of whom were suspended. There were two at level eight, two at level 10, four directors and one Deputy Director-General (DDG) also on suspension and two chief directors that had both been fired. This served as an illustration that the Department was implementing consequence management measures. This information has been shared formally with the AGSA.

On the question about naturalised citizens and why they had not been given Smart Cards, he said it was a matter that was in the process of being finalised. The Minister would communicate the outcome once it had been finalised.

Regarding the outstanding fines, the DHA had been engaging with AGSA, Air Traffic Navigation Services (ATNS) and other key stakeholders in the airline industry, and all of them had agreed that there was a need for a joint programme to deal with those that had outstanding fines. There was ongoing work on the bus services with the Cross Border Road Management Agency and the Department of Transport to target those not paying the fines.

He responded to the Biometric Movement Control System (BMCS) question by saying that it was being implemented. To deal with the pressure on the immigration facilities at the airports, a schedule where flights landed at particular intervals was being drawn up. The BMCS was not tested in a live environment, but had been tested before being rolled out.

Mr Thulani Mavuso, DDG: Institutional Planning and Support, DHA, said that the rollout of the booking system had started on 1 June. The plan was to have rolled out 43 offices by the end of June, 120 by the end of October, and the rest would be completed by 30 November. As of 18 October 2022, 160 offices now had the booking system. The breakdown was as follow:

  • 24 in KwaZulu-Natal
  • 22 in Eastern Cape
  • 18 in Limpopo
  • 18 in Mpumalanga
  • 11 in Free State
  • 11 in Gauteng
  • 9 in Northern Cape
  • 14 in North West
  • 15 in Western Cape

He showed that the systems were being used by indicating the number of appointments some offices had at the time of the meeting. They were dealing with the issue of "no-shows," and the DHA would have completed the modernised offices by the end of November.

He said they had received over 85 000 applications for the graduate programme. Of those, 5 000 met the requirements and there was now an interview process across the provinces for the first 2 000 cohort. The aim was to complete this by the end of October, as the onboarding must happen from 1 November.

The DHA's call centre had 120 lines and 74 call centre agents taking calls at any given time. If those lines were all busy, it might explain why the calls were not going through. The average waiting period was around seven minutes. He added that the DHA also had to deal with queries coming through email.

When the hospital connectivity project was presented to the Minister in 2019, 1 445 health facilities had maternity wards. These facilities were then categorised from priority one to priority five due to budgetary constraints, as this area had not been budgeted for, but it was now being funded through self-financing. In the 2020/21 financial year, it had been projected that the DHA would collect about R1.2 billion in revenue, but due to COVID-19, this number had plummeted, so it was determined that 85% of beds occurred in priorities one, two or three hospitals, which amounted to 251 beds. These hospitals had been prioritised until more budget became available.

Mr Thomas Sigama, DDG: Civic Services, said there were 412 Smart ID card offices, and of these offices, 198 had life capture systems. The remainder of the offices could not accommodate the system as they were too small. The DHA would extend its services through malls, starting with Menlyn, and with the mobile units. There were benefits to using mobile units as opposed to brick-and-mortar offices, and they definitely reduced the long queues in front of offices.

On the question surrounding the number of unabridged birth certificates that were requested in a year, he said that there were over 100 000 applications per year, and the DHA was able to receive 700 applications a day with a turnaround period of around eight weeks, as outlined in the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP). As of 2013, all newborns were issued with an unabridged birth certificate, so the Department did not have any backlog coming from 2013. For those born prior to 2013, it took time as it required the information to be located in the archives. From November, there would be 200 officials who would assist the Department in drawing up records to increase capacity. He added that the Department was busy with a digitisation project which aimed to see all paper reports within the civic environment digitised, making it easier for those who applied in future.

Mr Gordon Hollamby, DDG: Finance, said that for the 2021/22 financial year, the Department had 188 audit actions in the audit action plan, and of those, 37 were not completed. The bulk of the actions not completed dealt with IT (12 actions) and revenue (12 actions). Repeat findings were related to material misstatements, revenue issues and IT weaknesses. The nature of these findings has changed over time. In 2020/21, there had been an issue about the impairment methodology used to impair accrued Departmental revenue, and this year that was not a finding, but there had been a finding that 87% of the accrued revenue was impaired.

On irregular expenditure specifically relating to IT firewalls, he said that National Treasury had issued Practice Note 5 of 2009/2010, which defined a SITA mandatory service or a SITA non-mandatory service. Firewalls were not listed under the mandatory services, but the SITA Act outlined in Section 7.3 that all IT goods and services must be procured through SITA. When the AG raised the finding, the DHA had obtained a legal opinion which concluded that there was a conflict between the Practice Note and the SITA Act, and determined that the DHA was compelled to use SITA to procure all IT goods and services. A firewall had been procured for R119 million, without following the SITA process, and R33 million of that was paid in the year under review. The DHA was now looking to cancel the contract.

Ms Tampane Molefe-Sefanyetso, Acting DDG: Human Resource Management and Development, said that the vacancies still needed to be filled in Immigration Services, mainly in the refugee reception centres. It was an ongoing process, but the 742 positions would be filled by the end of the financial year.

The Chairperson asked the Minister and Deputy Minister to give their comments, and for the Deputy Minister to focus on the issue of the Smart Card IDs, particularly for matriculants. He asked the Minister to speak about their trip to Geneva, as it would impact the Department's work.

Deputy Minister on Smart Card IDs

Mr Njabulo Nzuza, Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, said there was a schedule for mobile units to go to schools in each province. This was partly why the Department was so successful in meeting the targets regarding Smart ID Cards.

He said the majority of undocumented children were the children of foreign nationals who were undocumented because they were not citizens of South Africa. Smart ID Cards were issued only to individuals 16 years and older, so some learners would have birth certificates but not Smart ID Cards. The DHA had a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Department of Basic Education (DBE), which gave the DHA a list of learners who were at school, particularly those in grade 12, who did not have identification documents. This enabled it to track the learners, quantify them and issue them the documents. In May, the DBE indicated that there were 2 560 learners who did not have the necessary identity documents. Of those, 619 were determined to not be South African citizens and 1 941 were South African citizens. Of the 1 941, using mobile units and tracking procedures, 1 008 had already been issued with a Smart Card ID, and by the time they sit for exams, the other 933 would have been issued with their identity documents.

The DHA had been able to achieve its target for early bird registration, but it was against great challenges as COVID-19 had affected its revenue, which was why it could not move at the pace it intended. It has been able to meet its targets through special programmes.

Minister's responses

Minister Motsoaledi confirmed that a power surge was not the reason for the GPW data loss -- the Ministerial Review Panel had concluded this. The reason for the data loss had been negligence -- the GPW had omitted to do certain things that would have prevented it from happening. The forensic team would be able to determine with more certainty if it had been deliberate or mere carelessness, but he believed the timing was questionable, as the crash had happened just when the financial statements were due. No files were available on evergreen contracts due to the crash, which raised concerns that the crash might have been planned to hide things. This was why the forensic audit needed to take place, which was a recommendation made by the Ministerial Review Panel.

The ABIS programme had nothing to do with the long queues, but was about the security of documents. The security was currently based in the Home Affairs' National Identification System, which had the biometrics of the people in the national population register, comprised of only a photo and fingerprint. In modern times this was not sufficient, as it could be cheated. With the ABIS, three more biometrics would be added, including a palm print, iris recognition and facial recognition.

He added to what Mr Sigama had said on the unabridged birth certificates. The backlog that was being dealt with referred to 2013 and before, as unabridged birth certificates had been issued since then. However, there were challenges with the unabridged birth certificates as there were social issues, such as both parents not being present, so they could issue only an abridged certificate. This meant that even though, in policy, the DHA was issuing only unabridged birth certificates, in practice, it looked different.

Referring to the irregular expenditure, he said that the PFMA was a good piece of legislation helping to fight corruption, but it was very compliance-based and not entirely developmental. He referred back to what Mr Hollamby said on the R33 million in irregular expenditure -- that even though all of the prescripts of the supply chain had been followed, it was found to be irregular because they were not using SITA. At the same time, unless there was an open tender where the private sector would compete with the GPW, one was not complying with the PFMA. He said that the PFMA must somehow be amended regarding development issues, because a department could comply and get a 100% green audit, but still, the country was not developing. The GPW could expand and bring more money to the state and hire more people if it was not forced to follow so-called market economics.

On the culture of accountability, he said that looking back, there were a lot of issues with no consequences, which was why there was so much corruption in the DHA. Now that people were facing consequences and accountability, he hoped that a culture of accountability would start to grow. He referred to the case of a level six employee making over R8 000 a day issuing fraudulent passports. He said the only way to stop such people was through consequence management, removing them from the Department and throwing them into jail.

Responding to the comment that the DHA was not making any dents on illegal immigration, he said the Border Management Agency had just been established and the immigration officers were doing all the work on the ground, but it seemed like no progress was being made because the borders were still an issue. Once the BMA was fully implemented, limiting the number of illegal immigrants, progress would really become evident. Incentives were also an issue. For example, people got married for the sake of citizenship, but should marriage and citizenship involve completely different policies; there would not be an incentive to marry for citizenship.

On naturalised citizens getting a Smart Card, he said it was not the DHA's policy not to issue the cards. When the Smart Cards were introduced in 2013, 39 million South Africans had to be migrated to the Smart IDs but the DHA, at full capacity, could issue only three million per annum. This was due to some offices still being legacy offices, so it was, in part, a problem of development.

He agreed with what Mr Roos had said about the outstanding fines. There were cases of people transporting people into the country illegally, not paying fines, and still being allowed to cross the border. When he confronted the officials, they said it was because the Cross-Border Road Transportation (CBRT) management board gave the licence to cross a border. The CBRT claimed that in terms of the law and the agreement with the SADC, there was no mechanism to stop anybody from coming in if their country had given them a licence. He had instructed the BMA commissioner that no bus must be allowed to come into South Africa if they had refused to pay the fines, as it was unacceptable to allow them into the country when they were breaking South African laws.

With the One-Stop Border Post (OSBP), private companies would not be able to charge passengers whatever they wanted, as there was going to be a prior agreement, and there had already been engagement with some of the trucking companies crossing the border regularly. These companies were willing to pay a huge sum of money, as long as the OSBP would make sure that they did not have to wait at the borders, which was why the Department was certain that the public-private partnership (PPP) would be a success. It was like a toll road where the fees were pre-determined.

Referring to the issue of IEC printing with the GPW, he said that although he wanted government entities in South Africa to use the GPW, as it was revenue for the country, it was not a good idea for the IEC to print with GWP. Considering the GPW was a government entity, having them print ballot papers was questionable, and he did not think that GPW should follow that route. The IEC must be allowed its independence and secrecy in this matter.

Responding to Ms Tito’s question about why the DHA was not acquiring more mobile trucks, he said that was what the DHA planned to do. It should rather spend money buying mobile trucks than building offices or modernising them. The trucks were fitted with satellite dishes so they were not vulnerable to cable theft, and if a system collapsed, they would still be able to go online. The mobile trucks should be increased every year until the requirement was saturated, so there were particular trucks for particular groups of schools or villages.

He announced that from 19 October, the IEC would be hosting the Association of World Election Bodies (AWEB), and there would be 63 countries attending. He wanted to announce it to the Committee so as not to be blindsided.

The Chairperson said that Members of the Committee had already been invited to the forum.

The Chairperson thanked the DHA and GPW for their presentations, and the Minister for considering some of the weaknesses that the Committee had highlighted, and for committing to improving the areas of concern. He commented that they would need to work around the clock on the action plan that had been presented by GPW in order to improve its governance. The Committee appreciated the progress made in the civic service, and identified itself with the progress as a demonstration that it had contributed to the affairs of the GPW, the IEC and the DHA. He said that the GPW executive must take note of the concerns raised, as the Committee would follow up on them. The immigration policy needed to be enforced, and the Department needed to clamp down on the issues raised.

He appreciated the audit outcomes and the work done to strengthen its financial position. He noted the important matter of gender-based violence (GBV). He said that as Members of Parliament and society, more attention needed to be paid to the priority areas in terms of GBV.

The Minister and Deputy Minister must enforce and get quarterly reports on the progress and implementation of the issues raised here in the Committee. He recalled that the Committee wanted to have strategic sessions with all of the departments just to deal with the action plan and the issues that the Committee had concerns about, and this would need to be looked into. A report of what had been deliberated on would be tabled for the purposes of the BRRR.

On the tabling of the Electoral Amendment Bill appeal, the Chairperson said that the Minister was not objecting to the process of the Bill.

The Committee Secretary suggested a short meeting on 21 October to adopt the BRRR report.

The Committee agreed to convene the meeting at 08h00 on 21 October.

The Chairperson thanked all the stakeholders and Members present.

The meeting was adjourned.

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