NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
FOR WRITTEN REPLY
QUESTION 2169
DATE OF PUBLICATION: Friday, 6 November 2009
INTERNAL QUESTION PAPER NO 27 OF 2009
Mrs J F Terblanche (DA) to ask the Minister of Home Affairs:
(1) Whether she or her department has taken any steps to eliminate the
backlog of applications for asylum seekers; if not, why not; if so,
(a) what steps, (b) what mechanisms are in place to ensure that these
steps are effective and (c) how will these steps eliminate the
backlog;
2) whether she or her department has conducted any research to
ensure a viable and realistic effort for the plan in this
regard; if not, why not; if so, what are the relevant details?
NW2870E
REPLY
1) Yes. The Department of Home Affairs, now, manages the process of
asylum applications on a system of single-day processing. That is,
applicants registered for the day will be processed on the same day,
and issued with a section 22 permit. The reality is that the Refugee
Reception Centres across South Africa are sometimes unable to cope
with the high demand for services due to the abuse of the asylum
system by economic migrants wanting to legalise their stay in the RSA.
The following interventions have been instituted to improve overall
capacity of the Refugee Reception Centres:
⢠Infrastructural upgrading
⢠Development of capacity by conducting intensive training
⢠New Information Systems roll-out at all Refugee Centres â the
National Immigration Information System (NIIS) which allows for the
interfacing of different IT systems
⢠Asylum process improvements
(2) The Department of Home Affairs is looking at ways to deal with mixed
migration flows into South Africa. It is evident that there is a need
to develop, and implement strategies to manage migration more
effectively, and the separation of economic migrants from asylum
seekers, would relieve the congestion experienced in the asylum
seeking process.