Chairperson, let me greet the Minister, the Deputy Minister and the hon members of the portfolio committee and congratulate the Minister on her appointment as the Minister of this department.
The Department of Home Affairs is the most crucial department in the birth, growth and working life of every citizen in this country. This department represents the commitment of government in ensuring that no one is deprived of her or his rights as a result of not having proof of identity. This voting debate today is supposed to bring about hope, yet again, to South Africans, that despite the fact that the department is currently in a tattered situation challenged by many predicaments, it can still rise above all these to deliver on its mandate.
The Congress of the People notes the turnaround strategy of the department that was introduced in the last quarter of 2007 and the good intention that was meant to be carried out by the intervention. But in the same spirit, we wonder if the department could not draw all its annual allocation instead of having about R20,47 million being sent back to Treasury. One wonders how all this is going to be able to work effectively, because, whilst having such a good strategy, the department continues not to draw all the money that has been allocated to it to be effective and efficient in discharging its mandate.
With regard to the 2009-10 annual performance plan of the department, as much as I take cognisance of the good intentions that the Minister has outlined here today, the Advanced Passenger Processing, APP, does not outline the performance measures that the department will use in order to ensure that, if its shortcomings are as a result of underperformance or it is identified as one of the major challenges that the department faces, it is dealt with. In this regard, I refer to the issue of the high vacancies that the Minister has also accepted as one of the issues.
The 2007-08 annual report of the department alluded also to the fact that there is serious theft that occurs in the department. Although it is not specified in the report as to whether or not this theft occurred as a result of staff, it again drops an undetailed plan from the department as to how exactly it seeks to address this issue, except for making a note of cases currently in the hands of the police. I think we needed to have a situation where it is outlined whether this is theft that continues to happen in the department as a result of staff or whether an external force is at work.
It is worrying to find no intervention in place to attend to this matter as this department has proven over the years to have employed staff that loot from the state and enter into illegal dealings in granting identity documents, including selling the names and surnames of our brothers and sisters to people who use those for other motives.
The suspension of senior officials, as per the annual report, is also silent on the department's plan to tighten up at that level in order to deal with this act, and close any possible vacuum. With the strategic realignment of departments as well as the introduction of a few new ones, one would have expected that the Department of Home Affairs, as one of the biggest departments this country has, would also have been divided into two, more especially since the Ministry has continuously run dry in coming up with solutions to process applications for asylumseekers and other issues. I must say that one wonders if the decision to break some of these departments into two was politically motivated rather than focusing on service delivery.
The refugees in this country are roaming the streets with the department doing little or nothing to ensure that all of them are legal immigrants. It is against this background that I believe Home Affairs indirectly contributed to the barbaric xenophobic attacks that took place in this country a year and a half ago. The department, in its 2009-10 APP, alluded to its turnaround strategy on the immigrants, but fell short of giving details, and this may lead one to conclude that no concrete plan is in place to deal decisively with this matter.
The committee must also note that this department has continued to fail in all attempts at delivering as a way of living up to its vision of being a leading department in service delivery. To this end, centres of operation where people can apply for birth certificates or identity documents are far from where the people of this country reside, and this gives the impression that people are paying severely for the services of this department as waiting periods are strenuous and unbearable as well. It must be noted that the mobile services of this department are easily accessible during election campaigns, and this has given a label to the department that its services are partisan.
The issue of corrupt officials who daily devour the department through selling passports and IDs, as well as conniving with illegal immigrants who seek to buy South African names to pursue their corrupt practices is a cause for concern. It should be noted that even young people who want to apply for child support grants are subjected to giving "amantshontsho" [bribes] upfront. This is despite the fact that some of these people have travelled unimaginable distances, only to have public servants milking them. [Time expired.] Thank you. [Applause.]