Chairperson, the Chairperson of the NCOP, colleagues and hon members, thank you very much, and once again, congratulations to the NCOP for Taking Parliament to the People. I think it's a very, very worthwhile thing for Parliament to be doing and it always gives us pause to think about whether our practices and our processes are actually having the desired effect when it comes to service delivery.
I must say that I just returned this morning from East London in the Eastern Cape, where I had been since yesterday. Yesterday in Port Alfred I met a lady who had been trying to register her son to receive an identity document. He was 16-years-old and he is doing his matric this year. She told me that she had come from Alexandria to Port Alfred on three occasions, having to travel by taxi to Home Affairs. Now, that Home Affairs office is an old, renovated church. It only has six officials and, geographically speaking, it services a very, very large area. It took me about 25 minutes of talking to her one on one just to try and establish what the problem was. What I realised was that actually she wasn't the mother of the child. She was the guardian. She happened to be the aunt of the child. Both of
the child's parents are deceased and the person who originally registered the child for a birth certificate was the biological mother. So, when she arrived and she said, my son, there was a discrepancy in the information on the system. Now, it took me about 25 minutes, but with the number of people having to be serviced in that office there is just no way that one of our officials could spare that time to sit with her and discuss this matter through to a solution. Happily, we were able to assist her. However, my point is simply this. For us to really be of service to people - because people do not always fit into the administrative and bureaucratic box - you actually need to be able to spend that time. So, across the board, we do need a whole lot more resources than we have at the moment.
As we know, Gauteng is one of the largest provinces with one of the largest citizen populations, but also as members have pointed out, the largest migrant population. So, if you consider that we have about 14 million people in Gauteng; we have 33 different offices, the largest one being in Harrison Street in Johannesburg with 117 officials in that particular office, and we still cannot cope with the numbers of people arriving at our offices, I think that as the report indicates, many of the recommendations that you make ultimately speak to resources. We need much more in terms of
personnel. We need better offices and we need better capabilities in terms of our systems. We need more technical skills in our outfit. At the event where we were on the East Rand I mentioned that Home Affairs has fewer than 10 000 personnel and to adequately meet the large client base we probably need double and triple that number.
As South Africa we host one of the largest asylum populations in the world. Ninety per cent of all asylum applications are brought at the Desmond Tutu Refugee Reception Center. Now, most countries that are signatories to the refugee convention do not allow asylum seekers freedom of movement, nor do they allow asylum seekers to work. South Africa does both.
Most of these asylum seekers are in fact from the continent. Other countries, including fellow African countries, will only allow refugees to work - and these are refugees not asylum seekers - and live where the state designates.
So it's untrue, and I think we must be very careful as members, to perpetuate this notion that South Africa is Afriphobic. I think we have one of the more liberal systems of migration and of asylums, and it comes at a huge cost. Most countries that host refugees
within their borders spend huge amounts of resources to manage these communities.
Our asylum services are inadequately resourced. If you consider that in our offices in Gauteng, with those large numbers of migrants, we have 32 members of our inspectorate services, you'll understand the huge challenge that Home Affairs faces.
I have looked at the recommendations of the report and, as I say, many of the recommendations made will require a rightsizing, both in terms of personnel numbers and technicians, etc. So, I want to assure the House that your ambitions for Home Affairs are our ambitions as well.
I just wish to respond to a few issues which again I think must be placed in perspective. I don't agree that boundaries are determined by colonisers. I think we must all remember that we have a little thing called the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, wherein we are defined as a sovereign country, and that our sovereignty is defined ... [Interjections.]