Hon Chairperson, hon Minister, hon Deputy Minister, hon members and the audience present in the gallery, the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs met with the department on 24 June 2014 for a briefing on its annual performance and the Budget for 2014-15.
The entities that report to the department were not engaged, although the department briefed us on the budgetary allocations for this financial year. We had this engagement because the committee has a mandate to exercise oversight over this department and its entities, namely the Independent Electoral Commission, the Film and Publication Board, and the Government Printing Works.
The deliberations continued on 24 June and 1 July 2014, when all questions raised were discussed and clarified. After that, a unanimous report of the committee was agreed to by consensus. I can say to this House that the report we tabled is an agreed product of all parties represented in our committee.
We are debating the Budget of the Department of Home Affairs, whose mandate can be categorised as having two parts, namely the mandate on civic services and the mandate on immigration services.
The civic services mandate charges the department to be the custodian, protector and verifier of the identity and status of citizens and permanent residents in South Africa. Our population register should reflect the true status of our citizens in this country.
We applaud the department on its achievements over the past years in the areas of shorter turnaround times on identity documents, travel documents and birth certificates. We would like to encourage similar efficiencies in other civic documents.
However, we want to raise the matter of improving security in regard to all our civic documents, inclusive of their production processes. Of course, we will also encourage further efforts to make these services accessible in deep rural areas, where we currently lack reach. Our clarion call is that all these should be balanced out with the security of our offices, processes and systems, of the state, and of our documents themselves. There is no compromise on this matter, hon Minister. The mandate on immigration services charges the department to control, regulate and facilitate immigration and the movement of persons through our ports of entry. The department also services foreign missions and determines the status of asylum seekers and refugees in accordance with international obligations.
The committee is satisfied that the department has realised that the work that they do has serious implications for the security of our country. This mandate places the obligation on the department to ensure that there is certainty regarding those who have sought asylum and those that are refugees. We expect the department to fulfil this mandate and secure our country.
We as a country cannot allow the strength of our security to be determined by noncitizens. It is the duty of the department to plug all loopholes that are exploited by noncitizens to acquire our documents illegally.
The new immigration regulations should be given time for implementation. During the transitional period glitches may be experienced here and there. South Africans must be sufficiently patient, as any change has never been pleasant to all. We are convinced that the department has a correct level of consciousness of these regulations and their intentions.
We appreciate the open door policy of the Minister regarding unintended consequences, if there are any. We as a committee will, of course, continue to engage with the department in order to be briefed on progress being made during the implementation of the new immigration regulations.
The entities I spoke about as reporting to this department fulfil crucial responsibilities in the work of the state. All of us know that the IEC continues to shine in organising and managing elections in the country. We have just completed the successful 2014 national and provincial general elections. We are keen to know how they perform in terms of their plans. Are there lessons that have been learned, and what steps will be taken going forward? We do not doubt the capacity and integrity of the commission in doing this work.
We also have the Government Printing Works, with whom we will engage, moving forward, in order to gain an appreciation of their plans for spending the resources allocated to them. We understand the reasons for cutting down on the target of ID smart cards for this financial year, in order to ensure the security of the systems first. However, we encourage the department to attend earnestly to the expansion of the system with the necessary speed. There is a high level of acceptance of this card in the country, and access should not be unduly delayed.
The role of the Film and Publication Board in evaluating the films to be screened within our borders speaks volumes. The work of managing pornography and adult shops brings morality to our society.
This department is on a transformation path to bring about a serious, radical shift away from the path of the past, which used to be plagued by a myriad of challenges, systemic inefficiencies and unlawful acts.
The freedom we attained has brought new challenges that require a transformed department in order to mitigate all risks emanating from both inside and outside the country. We are told that when this transformation is complete we will see a department with patriotic, disciplined, security- conscious, professional and humane officials. Then, we will see a department with modernised information technology systems for security and service delivery. We will also see a department with secure identity and immigration services, and a high capacity to secure critical systems. It will also be fully integrated into the justice, crime prevention and security cluster. These objectives will certainly put the department on the high road and make a serious contribution to social cohesion and the National Development Plan.
Chairperson, the department is allocated R6,2 billion for this financial year, inclusive of allocations to the related entities. The department has experienced a reduction of R371 million in relation to the 2013-14 Budget. We have therefore cautioned the department that critical services should be prioritised and not suffer from the budget cuts. This Budget provides for the following.
In Programme 1 we have the Corporate Services subprogramme, which should not be compromised at all. According to the annual report of 2012-13, this subprogramme underachieved in relation to its targets, and hence needs to perform better moving forward. This programme will ensure that we have professional cadres that will direct the work of this department, as resolved in the ANC's 53rd National Conference.
This Budget also provides for Programme 2. The significant reduction is seen here, and we would like the department to minimise, if not eliminate, the impact on critical work areas of this programme. We are informed that this reduction is counterbalanced by own generated fees earned from the issuing of certain documents. The department should ensure that the income generated is sustained in order for this programme not to suffer.
We as the ANC-led government have committed ourselves to cleaning up the national population register. The campaign in this regard, targeted at persuading parents to register the birth of their children within 30 days of their birth, is supported. The decentralisation of birth registrations to the majority of our health facilities seeks to put life into this campaign.
The National Development Plan requires accurate data for planning, and hence the use of secure, integrated and automated processes and systems will create a paperless data environment less prone to loss and unlawful acts.
Also in this programme is the funding of the Independent Electoral Commission for the work of the 2016 municipal elections. We call upon the commission to upgrade the security and processes, as people continue to sharpen their skills to undermine the commission's integrity.
Programme 3 is the programme wherein the facilitation of scarce and critical skills acquisition from outside the country is enhanced. The focus on economic development requires enabling immigration regulations that allow migration of these skills into our country.
The department should attend to a number of challenges which hamper the ability to function and deliver services. These challenges are, firstly, the negative public perceptions and the general Batho Pele principles. Then there are the photos in ID documents which are sometimes mixed up. These challenges are related to the records management system, which needs to be digitised to largely remove human error.
In his state of the nation address the President declared war on corruption. Tightening the processes and the document security is a non- negotiable requirement and obligation for this department. We therefore expect the department to deal with all unlawful activities in its efforts to make a contribution to a corruption-free administration. We believe that enhanced IT-based operations will go a long way towards achieving this goal. I also believe that we will contribute to the efficiency and fewer unlawful activities that the President promised our citizens.
As I move towards a conclusion, I want to point out that a radical shift in the manner in which we do our work is taking place. Let us restate what this entails: the immediate registration of the birth of our children, within 30 days; the reduction in the turnaround time for identity documents and passports; the tightening of immigration regulations to enhance the security of our services and the country; the attention to the posture of our frontline offices; the state-of-the-art new smart ID cards introduced; and the proposal to relocate the refugee reception offices to borderlines.
All these are a serious, radical shift, responding with efficiency, skills enhancement, security consciousness, dealing with our image problems, and the transformation of the department, as the fifth administration would like to be remembered. Together we are moving South Africa forward.
I therefore unapologetically declare here that the ANC supports Budget Vote 4 of Home Affairs. I thank you. [Applause.]