Chairperson, perhaps the hon Mtileni falls under "pregnancy" - we don't know. [Laughter.]
My greetings go to the hon Minister, the Deputy Minister, hon members and special delegates in the House. On 25 May every year, we mark unity in Africa. This year, it is 52 years since the founding of the Organisation of African Unity, which was the predecessor to the African Union. It is sad to note that during this important month, where we identified ourselves as a society in Africa, we have experienced issues of xenophobic attacks on foreign nationals. I must say that those people are husbands of some of us. Some are wives and others are children.
It might be that we do not know our origins. You just find yourselves in a certain place in South Africa, and not knowing your origins, you attack yourselves. In Zimbabwe, for example, we have kaMzilikazi, which relates directly to KwaZulu-Natal. There is a full village in Zambia where there are people who went into exile and did not come back to South Africa. Do we have to attack them when they come back home? It is regrettable.
Those activities or actions that were done by those people were criminal. It is not because, as South Africans, we are xenophobic. We want to condemn this in the strongest terms, and express appreciation for the work done by this department in collaboration with other departments.
Home Affairs is both a security and a service delivery department. The two are interdependent. Without a secure national population register, our birth certificates and identity documents would lose all their value. No other country would accept our passports.
Every person living in South Africa would be at risk if there were no effective controls at ports of entry or enforcement of immigration law. Just as seriously, we would not attract or retain foreign nationals with the critical skills needed to expand our economy and few tourists would visit our country. Therefore, it is very important that we have something that we identify ourselves with, as South Africans.
We appreciate the excellent work done by the Minister and the Deputy Minister, together with the team in that department. I will focus more on some of the achievements that this department has registered. Excellent work cannot be achieved without being ethical, patriotic and professional. These are the qualities that we have witnessed from this department from the beginning of the Fifth Parliament, when we started engaging with it. Minister, we want to thank you very much for the good work that you are doing in the department. It is noticed by the committee.
I would like to commend the department for the programme aimed at creating an efficient, paperless environment. This began with equipping offices to issue ID smart cards and passports using new processes. This is, indeed, part of building a comprehensive national identity system that uses biometrics to secure the identity of all who live in South Africa, regardless of whether one is a South African or a foreign national. This department touches all of us, whether you are already in the country or are one of those who are entering the country illegally. This will improve all our lives, and it depends on all citizens working together with the department to defend our identities and citizenships.
This corruption that is taking place is not only amongst our officials. Those citizens within the country who are agreeing to perform corrupt deeds are equally guilty. In this regard ...
... ngitsandza kugcugcutela bantfu bakitsi kutsi abaciniseke kutsi nabayotfolwa umntfwana esibhedlela, bambhalise kungakapheli emalanga lange- 30 atelwe. Kunetibhedlela letinemahhovisi eLitiko Letasekhaya. Ababhalise bantfwana bangakayi emakhaya.
Loku kwenta kutsi kube lula kutsi nasekabuyile ekhaya angasabi nesidzingo sekuya kulamahhovisi eLitiko Letasekhaya. Loku futsi kwenta kube lula kutsi lelitiko lati kutsi libabhalisile basesesibhedlela ngembi kwekutsi baye emakhaya. (Translation of Siswati paragraphs follows.)
[... I would like to encourage our people, when they go to hospital to give birth, to make sure that they register their newborns within 30 days of birth. There are hospitals that have Department of Home Affairs offices on their premises. Let babies be registered before they go home.
This makes it easier for the mother when she arrives home. She does not need to go to Home Affairs offices. This makes it easier for the department, as well, knowing that it has already registered them while they were still in hospital, before they could be discharged.]
We are encouraging parents to register the birth of their children within 30 days.
I would like to commend the department on the following achievements between 2009 and 2014. Firstly, in dealing with late birth registration, the department introduced the National Population Registration campaign. This mobilised officials and communities to record over 1 million invisible citizens and reduce late birth registration. I must say that this has been a challenge for the country because that is where most corrupt activities were taking place - people would come and say it is a late registration. We commend the department, as it has come up with a programme on that one.
Secondly, the department had amended civic and immigration legislation. As a result, the department had addressed security gaps and improved service delivery, including among the vulnerable groups. We have witnessed that the security of birth certificates has been improved. It is unlike before, where one could just forge them. These are the matters of security the Minister was referring to. For example, the Department of Home Affairs is now asking for both parents' details when registering a child. The front office that has been in the pipeline for sometime is now available for the first time to print the full birth certificate.
Hon Minister, I just want to indicate that with the new ID smart cards, we know that there is a grace period for the elderly, who can still collect theirs later at no fee. However, there are some challenges in terms of distances, because we do not have offices in all the areas. Perhaps we could have a mobile unit per province with all the required equipment.
There is a case at hand, the issue of Spoegrivier, in Northern Cape. These Afrikaans words are very difficult for me to pronounce! The majority of citizens there are elderly people who are not able to travel to Springbok to collect their ID documents. It's not only in that area. It's happening in all provinces. Therefore, we are requesting that we consider that every province should have a mobile unit with all the facilities required to issue the ID smart cards.
Thirdly, with regard to our immigration services, a centralised adjudication hub was established for permits and visas. This reduced fraud and corruption, enabling gains in efficiency.
Lastly, the stakeholder forum, chaired by the Speakers or mayors at local level, is really assisting, because now, the department is involving all the relevant stakeholders.
We have witnessed a major information technology breakthrough in the design and development of the new systems within the department, including the roll out of the ID smart cards. The refurbishment programme continued and included transforming 70 paperless offices to new, fully digital processing for identity documents. That is why the hon Minister was saying that you can pay on your system and make an appointment. You only go there to have photographs taken and finger prints done. It is very progressive, and we really appreciate that.
In terms of enhancing our immigration affairs, we note that the department is aiming to introduce two Bills: the Refugees Amendment Bill and the Border Management Agency Bill. We really appreciate that because the management of our borders has been a big challenge for a while. This is largely due to the fact that the Immigration Affairs programme objective is still underfunded. We would like more resources to be allocated to the department, so that it is able to perform all the objectives, as expected. As I said earlier, we all depend on those departments. If you look at it from a distance, it does not look like a very important department, but at the end of the day, it is the most important department.
We are not here to only identify the positives, but also to identify some challenges facing the department. To highlight a few, "unfavourable audit opinion" is not in our vocabulary in the committee. We only want to speak "clean audit". The administration should pull up their socks to make sure that we get a clean audit. We acknowledge that we have a number of offices that are not in the country. That is contributing towards the outcomes of the Auditor-General because you cannot account for some of the issues. That we acknowledge. At the very least, let's settle for an unqualified audit opinion.
We still hear stories of some department officials who collude with criminal syndicates to steal identity and even citizenship. We therefore need robust and visible action to be taken in order to combat fraud and corruption.
There is still a highly uneven quality of infrastructure in terms of our offices. Hon Minister, I know the department was talking about branding our offices, last year. We would want to see a Home Affairs office identity so that when I arrive there, I don't have to read whether it is Home Affairs, or not. They must be branded so that they are clearly visible.
As a committee, we are therefore satisfied that, after engaging with the department, it is aligned to the National Development Plan, NDP, all strategic documents of government and, especially, the manifesto of the ruling party.
We therefore support the Budget Vote of the department. Thank you.