Chairperson, hon Minister of Home Affairs, Dr Dlamini-Zuma, Deputy Minister Chohan, hon Members of Parliament, Mr Apleni and your leadership in the department, the Independent Electoral Commission, IEC, the Film and Publication Board, FPB, Government Printing Works and its leadership, ladies and gentlemen, I salute you.
Chair, I rise on this point not forgetting that our chairperson is not well. We wish her well in her difficulty. I dedicate my speech to a young girl, an infant who was born two weeks ago, Asenathi Magoda, who went missing in Khayelitsha yesterday at the offices of the Department of Home Affairs.
This year, it is exactly 102 years since the establishment of the Department of Home Affairs on 31 May 1910. The Department of Home Affairs has developed from a department that previously represented a select few to a department that represents all of us here today. Chairperson, it remains a great challenge whether we have convincingly managed to address the disparities confronting our citizenry. The answer to that question is a yes and a no.
It is a yes, because under your leadership, hon Minister, the department managed to receive its first unqualified audit opinion since its inception in 1995. You have managed to change the story of the department from one of horror to a better story. The universal facelift of all the offices of the department is commendable. We now need to do the same for refugee reception offices.
The answer to my question is also a no. It is a no, because hospital connectivity for registrations at birth needs to be uniform across the board. We need to reduce the distance that people travel to the Department of Home Affairs offices in order to ensure that there is universal access to the offices. People in the far-flung rural areas take a long time to get to the offices, because some have to ride on their horses. If you don't have a horse, you have to walk long distances or get a lift. Sometimes it takes more than 40 km to get to a closer smaller place office. To get to a Department of Home Affairs office should not be that difficult.
The administration of the department is also an area that needs urgent attention and, hon Minister, I know that this is something that is possible. The financial management capacity and human resources skills should be improved.
Chairperson, we will never address challenges facing this department if we do not address staff shortages. This department needs to urgently employ 282 immigration officers and 19 officials in the anticorruption unit in order to curb the element of fraud and corruption among public officials. That tendency can only be addressed if we do our work seriously.
If we look at the National Development Plan that we have been workshopped on this week, hon members, this department is the only department that has been used as an example regarding the use of a turnaround strategy as a catalyst for service delivery. We should use that as a lesson that will catapult a culture across the board in immigration services, borders, etc.
Hon Chairperson, we urge the Minister to consider increasing the threshold of people with disabilities, in the employ of the department. We have far less than the 2% threshold which is a requirement for employing people with disabilities and this needs to be addressed. With regard to gender parity, departments need to work on the 50% measure to ensure that women are represented at all levels where decisions are taken as this is not the case at the moment.
Recently, when the department came to make a presentation, we saw only two women at the director-general level. We have also realised that it takes time to get competent and quality women at the provincial manager level. We must go on headhunting and get people at that level. That can be done.
We must move away from a paper-based system to an electronic and modernised system as some members have said, and I don't need to emphasise that. The DA supports the IT modernisation plan which has been presented to the committee and we recommend that there be very clear timeframes that are measureable, achievable and result-driven.
In a new major initiative earlier this year, the Ministry of Home Affairs launched two projects worth $13,7 million and supported by the United Nations Development Programme, UNDP, the United Nations Capital Development Fund, UNCDF, the Swiss Agency for Development and Co-operation and the Republic of Korea. The two projects are meant to be part of the government's programme for Governance and Public Administration Reform during 2011 to 2015. The DA welcomes this initiative and wishes the Minister well in the implementation of the projects.
The department needs to cut down on high litigation expenditure. A lot of money has been spent on lawyers and this can be scaled down. The scaling down of litigation will mean that we do not have to get all the judgments from court, and I am happy with the report that indicates that a lot has been done to that effect.
The last issue is the late registration of births. We wish to ask the department to speed up the work around this issue to ensure that ...
... oomakhulu bayifumana kwangethuba inkamnkam kuba uba yingxaki enkulu umba wenkamnkam. Ndikhe ndanceda omnye umakhulu apha eNyanga East. Zange wayifunama inkamnkam kodwa uneminyaka engama-70; oko kusithiwa uneminyaka engama-50. Ude athi, "Oko kusithiwa ndineminyaka engama-50, iminyaka minje, andide ndiwagqibe ama-70 mna." Ngaloo mazwi, siyabulela. [Kwaqhwatywa.] (Translation of isiXhosa paragraph follows.)
[... grandmothers receive their old age grant timeously, because this issue of the old age grant is a huge problem. I helped another granny here in Nyanga East, who is 70 years old and has never received the old age grant, because they claim that she is 50 years old. She said, "They have been saying I am 50 years old, for so many years, it seems as if I will never reach 70 years." With those words, I thank you. [Applause.]]