Home Affairs BRRR; IEC office-bearer job profiles

Home Affairs

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

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Budget Review & Recommendations Reports BRRR

The Committee considered its Budgetary Review and Recommendations Report on the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) and finalised recommendations on audit outcomes, security measures, additional office hours and responses by Department officials.

The Committee considered the job profiles of the IEC Office bearers and deferred the matter to the next meeting for final decision.

Meeting report

Meeting report

 

Committee Content Advisor, Mr Adam Salmon, briefed the Committee on the draft BRRR.

Outstanding recommendations from the 2021 BRRR were included –
• Department’s audit outcome and accountability of officials involved in illegal procurement at Beit Bridge.
• Assessment and report on security at Home Affairs offices – specifically around cash collection.
• Upgrading of key Ports Of Entry to be prioritised.
• Urgent need to provide services for longer hours and on Saturdays.
• Progress report or final outcome on Government Printing Works (GPW) investigation on missing financial data, missing CVs and lack of human resources in the IT environment. This includes outstanding GPW 2020/21 Annual Report that was supposed to be submitted by May 2022.
• IEC should provide a detailed motivation and budget for the procurement of permanent headquarters rather than current high rental premises.
• IEC plan and target for 10 million unregistered eligible voters incorporated onto voters’ roll.

Recommendations for 2022 included –
• DHA must ensure that the registration of births is improved and the issuing of Unabridged Birth Certificates are not delayed. All offices should be modernised to ensure that citizens can apply for Smart Cards, this should include naturalised citizens. Branch appointments should be rolled out to all offices for both applications and collections. Applications for passports and identity documents through banks should also be rolled out to alleviate long queues.
• Mobile units should be dedicated to schools and the elderly for annual or bi-annual visits to schools.
• DHA must reduce irregular expenditure and develop audit action plan to address audit findings.
• DHA must improve the eHomeAffairs system and contact centre response time.
• DHA ensure hiring of 10 000 youth for scanning project is completed as soon as possible.
• DHA should address its ongoing IT challenges.
• DHA must table an action plan to address the immigration challenges, this should include fake documents and undocumented migrants.
• Government Printing Works should ensure its annual financial statements for 2021/22 are submitted to the Auditor-General and Parliament as soon as possible and ensure 2022/23 financials are submitted on time.
• The Minister should ensure that all the recommendations on the GPW data loss are implemented and the necessary measures put in place to stabilise GPW.
• IEC should expand its outreach and education programme and report back on un-condoned irregular expenditure. They must address the Voter Management Device technical and training issues before the 2024 election and address voters that were removed from the voters’ roll.

Discussion
Mr K Pillay (ANC) raised his concern about the GPW data loss and incomplete audits that is still unresolved.

Mr A Roos (DA) requested more detail and updates from the Department on the security upgrades. He proposed that the Committee should refer the GPW lack of audit outcomes, financial data loss and possible security breach to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

Ms A Kanyile (DA) expressed her concern around the Home Affairs network going off-line so often. She recommended that the Department should be more responsive to the public especially via email and they should stick to timelines for the production of documents.

The Chairperson acknowledged the work done by the Electoral Commission on voter education in collaboration with Higher Education facilities. However, he emphasised that politicians and political parties must assist by raising awareness.

Mr T Mogale (EFF) asked that the Electoral Commission set an annual target for the registration of outstanding eligible voters. He proposed that it must be considered to amend the law to allow any person that becomes an eligible voter to be automatically placed on the voters’ roll. He asked that staff training for elections and by-elections be improved.

The Chairperson requested that the recommendations stemming from the Local Government elections of November 2021 be added to the report.

The Committee adopted the BRRR as amended. The DA and EFF abstained.

Electoral Commission office-bearers draft job profiles: feedback
Mr Salmon noted that the IEC draft job profiles were received in June 2022 and the House Chairperson for Committees, Oversight and ICT had requested that the Committee submit feedback.

The following concerns were highlighted by Mr Solomon:
• Where and how are the differences decided between part time and full time Commissioners, Chairperson and Vice chairperson if their job descriptions are identical?
• For the two full time Commissioners other than the Chairperson and Vice Chairperson, who decides which priority will be their focus to prevent unnecessary duplication?
• Who decides and how is the time spent and the weighting for each Key Performance Area decided on since it is left blank in the job profiles received?

The Chairperson requested that Mr Salmon and the Committee members look at the roles of Commissioners as outlined in the Electoral Act.

The Committee agreed that the matter would be finalised at the next meeting.

The meeting adjourned.

 

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