Hon Chairperson, hon members of the Assembly, members of the portfolio committee, Ministers, Deputy Ministers and distinguished guests, may I take this opportunity to recognise the presence of leaders of various legal entities that support the work of Home Affairs. These include the CEO and the chairperson of the Film and Publication Board, Ms Thoko Mpumlwana and Ms Makhasi; acting chairperson of the Refugee Appeal Board, Mr Tjerk Damstra; chief executive officer of the Government Printing Works, Mr Tom Moyane; chairpersons of some of the newly formed Home Affairs stakeholder forums, councillor Winneth Mtolo from Sisonke and councillor Winile Ngavile from O R Tambo Municipality.
My gratitude goes to the chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs, hon Ben Martins, and the entire committee for their support, robust interaction and oversight. May I express my gratitude to the Deputy Minister, hon Malusi Gigaba; the senior management of the department and all those officials who are honest and hardworking.
Hon Chairperson, April is a highly significant month in the history of our country. Sadly, it marks the date on which the process of our oppression began, with the landing of Jan van Riebeeck on our shores. Happily, April is also when it ended, with the attainment of our democracy. Critically, April reminds us of the supreme sacrifices that people of this country made in order for us to be here and to achieve peace, freedom, democracy and justice while reclaiming our dignity.
Therefore, in this month we have to remember some of our heroes, our patriots, our revolutionaries whom we should all emulate; people like Comrade Chris Hani, the late president O R Tambo and Comrade Solomon Mahlangu. Let me take this opportunity to salute his brother, who is with us today in the gallery. [Applause.]
We also join the National Assembly in extending our heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of the late Deputy Minister of Health, Dr Molefi Paul Sefularo. Our thoughts and prayers reach out to his wife, Kgomotso, and their children.
Hon members, in the context of 2010 being designated "the year of action" by the President of the Republic in his state of the nation address, we will redouble our efforts to speed up and improve the quality of service delivery.
In the Budget Vote speech last year, we committed to a concerted registration and identity document campaign over the next two years, directed at consolidating a secure and accurate national population register, the NPR.
Led by President Jacob Zuma, we launched the registration and identity document campaign on 23 March 2010 at Libode in the Eastern Cape, after having piloted it in the Sisonke and O R Tambo District Municipalities.
It is worth noting that we are also establishing forums nationally with a view to involving the citizenry directly in service delivery by monitoring performance, combating corruption and providing support, both to Home Affairs and to citizens who are experiencing problems.
The strategic outcomes of this campaign are: firstly, entrenching the culture of registering the birth of every child within 30 days of delivery; secondly, issuing identity documents to every South African of 16 years and older; and thirdly, discontinuing the late registration of births. To this end, we registered 1 147 000 children and adults last year. Of those, 354 588 were people who were registered for the first time and who where over the age of 16. We hope we will indeed complete the late registration drive and do away with it. Due to the intensity of the campaign, we also issued 834 353 identity documents to first-time applicants, which is 200 000 more than in the previous year.
Fourthly, we are also reviewing legislation pertaining to the registration of births, deaths and marriages. Fifthly, the ID campaign has started. Therefore, we urge all politicians to join us in the campaign now and not wait for the 2011 local government elections to take place, since there will be no such special campaign then.
Hon members, South Africa is about to witness a momentous and historic occasion for our country and, indeed, our continent, Africa: the most beautiful spectacle in the world, the 2010 Fifa World Cup. We would like to reiterate the readiness of our government and people to host a successful 2010 Fifa World Cup in this land of Shaka, Moshoeshoe, Sekhukhune, Hintsa, Makhado and others. Home Affairs stands ready to welcome the multitude of soccer-loving fans from across the globe: Africa, Asia, America, Europe, Oceania, South America, the Middle East and the Gulf.
Our contribution to the successful hosting of the 2010 World Cup includes the first-ever and historic "event visa" to facilitate the movement of spectators and visitors from around the world. All spectators in possession of a Fifa match ticket are eligible to apply for the event visa, free of charge, following the normal procedures at South African diplomatic missions.
We have introduced the advanced passenger processing system for airlines flying into South Africa. This system enables the screening of passengers before they depart for South Africa. The training of airline liaison officers was recently completed and their deployment will begin in May to assist airlines to verify travel documents and personal particulars presented by travellers in the country of departure.
There will be dedicated express lanes at selected international airports and co-located border posts with neighbouring countries. A 24-hour operational centre in Pretoria has been established to provide statistical information for operational planning and incident reporting in liaison with security agencies. In collaboration with Sars and other relevant departments, we are implementing an enhanced movement control system to facilitate the secure movement of people in and out of the country in preparation for the 2010 Fifa World Cup. The system is being piloted at O R Tambo International Airport and will be rolling out to 34 priority ports of entry before the World Cup.
We also promise to fight the scourge of corruption, which is affecting not only Home Affairs, but society in general. We have enhanced our countercorruption strategy while elevating the countercorruption and security unit into a fully fledged branch, which will be led by a deputy director-general. We have also appointed countercorruption specialists to further capacitate that branch.
Progress has been made in enhancing the security of our systems. We have upgraded and extended the use of biometric access control to prevent illegal access to the department's systems and thus ensure an audit trail and accountability. Another important countercorruption measure is the inclusion of the details of the mother on the birth certificate, while enhancing its security features.
In our intensive efforts to improve and enhance operational efficiencies, the department has made significant progress on the following: firstly, the passport backlog, which we talked about in our last Budget Vote, has been eliminated. In 40 offices where the live capture in biometrics is available, the turnaround time for passports is now between 14 and 30 days. Secondly, the track and trace system has been extended to cover the registration of births, marriages, deaths, passports and some immigration permits. This has expedited processes and enhanced security while enabling us to contact citizens via SMS. Thirdly, we have improved access to Home Affairs services by establishing 21 new facilities. Members will remember that last year we said we will open 13 offices, but we are happy to report that we exceeded that, and opened 21. [Applause.] A new refugee reception centre was also opened in Musina. There has been an aggressive campaign using mobile units to access rural areas and schools.
Fourthly, to get Home Affairs front offices right, we are piloting an electronic queue management system that will function by providing ticket numbers to the clients. It also informs clients on their approximate waiting time while reducing congestion in public areas. We are piloting this at Khayelitsha and it has reduced the waiting time from 45 to 25 minutes. Fifthly, we have successfully relocated the refugee reception centre, which was a problem last year, from Nyanga to Maitland. The Maitland office is bigger, better and more efficient. Sixthly, our refugee reception centres are now issuing asylum seeker permits within one day, unlike previously, when they were issued within a week. [Applause.] Hon members, despite these achievements, more needs to be done to complete the sustainable transformation of the Department of Home Affairs. Our priorities for this financial year, among others, are: firstly, ensuring an accurate, credible and secure national population register and that birth will be the only entry point into our population register. To that end, we have connected 142 hospitals to Home Affairs systems, so that mothers can register their babies even before they leave the hospitals. [Applause.] In this financial year, we will be connecting 120 more.
Secondly, we will also be opening 10 new front offices to extend our footprint. Thirdly, we are happy that the KwaZulu-Natal MEC for social development, Dr Meshack Radebe, has agreed that their one-point development centres will also give space to Home Affairs. That will allow us to get into rural areas where we don't have offices.
Thirdly, we are undertaking a review on immigration policy, especially to try and separate the economic migrants from genuine asylum seekers. We have started consultations on this process because we understood that we couldn't just sit and legislate from our offices but needed to consult. We have started with Cosatu and we will also be consulting with various stakeholders in the coming months, and eventually we will bring legislation here to Parliament.
Fourthly, we are committed to achieving an unqualified audit within one year and a clean audit within two years. I know this is not easy but that's what we are aiming for. The internal audit and risk management functions have been strengthened and controls are being implemented. Such controls include a new revenue receiving system which has been installed in l00 high- volume offices. Sixthly, we are putting infrastructure in place in all our front offices to ensure our readiness when the smart card is introduced, hopefully in the next financial year.
Seventhly, there is a need to re-orientate Home Affairs officials and introduce change interventions in order to engender an ethos of pride and service excellence. We will develop a workforce that is self-motivated, ethical, competent and accountable. Eighthly, a learning centre is being established and will be the vehicle for the training of staff, not only in these values but also in increasing their competencies. Lastly, we have appointed the deputy directors-general and filled the posts that were vacant last year, except the chief information officer's post and the newly created post of Deputy Director-General: Countercorruption. A number of critical chief director and director posts have been filled.
Hon Chairperson, we would like to take this opportunity to introduce our new director-general, Mr Mkuseli Apleni, appointed on 1 April 2010. It wasn't an April fool's joke. He was appointed. [Applause.]
We express our gratitude for the services of our outgoing director-general, Mr Mavuso Msimang, and wish him well in his future endeavors. Other details will be given by the Deputy Minister.
I would like to say, in conclusion, I am confident that with your support, hon members, and that of society at large, we will succeed in building and transforming Home Affairs - building on that foundation that has been laid as the department of excellence and as an employer of choice. I hope that this Budget Vote will meet with your support and approval. Thank you. [Applause.]