Speaker, I thank the hon member. Of course, it would assist me if, when members see the questions in the Question Paper, they could send their questions in. Then we would be able to prepare ourselves to respond appropriately.
Let me just say that the establishment of the adjudication committees, as well as the enquiries unit, was due to the realisation that we had difficulties, that there was an overloading of the existing staff, and that we needed to take special measures in order to ensure that we were able to move faster. I am going to be appointing more staff to the unit dealing with permits. We are in the process of considering applications so that we can appoint 20 more staff members to assist with the adjudication and processing of enquiries.
We have cleared, as I indicated, the temporary permits backlog from around 46 000 applications, to arrive at a situation where we consider those applications that we receive on a day-to-day basis. We are able to process them within the eight weeks that is mentioned in the annual performance plan. I hope that we will maintain this record or, in fact, improve upon it.
I do think all countries have fairly weighty processes, particularly with respect to permanent residence applications. With respect to temporary residence, obviously one would want to look at whether the requirements might be far too onerous, given the temporary nature of those permits. However, you also have to be careful that you don't simplify to a degree where you actually give yourself further problems, rather than addressing the challenges that confront you.