Minister of Home Affairs Budget speech & responses by ANC and DA

Minister of Home Affairs, Mr. Malusi Gigaba gave his Budget Vote Speech on 22 April 2016.

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Chairperson,
Ministers and Deputy Ministers,
Honourable Members,
Distinguished Guests:
 
It is with a profound sense of responsibility that I stand before you to table our Budget Vote for the 2016 / 2017 Financial Year.
 
We know the duty we owe to our people to lead them along a path that leads to a majestic but attainable future, to be tireless, ethical and innovative to deliver quality services in a manner that is convenient and enduring.
 
The notion that government is boring and how we deliver services is itself devoid of innovation and new ideas is being negated in practice in this Department that many people once resented visiting.
 
On Wednesday, I received a text from Mr. Tebalo Tshabalala on Instagram saying:
 
“Minister, I applied for my new smart ID last week Friday online and got it today (Wednesday, 20 April 2016). It took literally two to three working days for me to get my ID. [I] collected it at FNB branch in Sandton. Good Service. We congratulate you and your ministry for the hard and excellent work.”
 
Tebalo is one of the many young South Africans between 30 and 35 years that have sent us messages praising the ground-breaking eHomeAffairs.
 
There is no end to what we can achieve for our people if we place both our hands on the full spectrum of opportunity offered by science and technology the better to improve their lives by delivering our services better and more conveniently.
 
In this regard, the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) is investing tireless efforts conceiving a different package of services for the future so that when the children born this year turn 16 years old, they will most probably have no reason to even visit a Home Affairs office to apply for their first ID card.
 
Chairperson,
 
Our department is evolving with the times, the better to be able innovatively to execute our important mandate.
 
For far too long, Home Affairs has been perceived as a slow, moribund department offering low-value services in an inefficient and indifferent manner.
 
No more!
 
We are re-imagining Home Affairs, as a modern, digital, secure custodian of national identity, responding to the present and future needs and circumstances and run by professionals, operating in a highly secure environment to protect the precious records of the lives of our people.
 
With this in mind, it is appropriate that Cabinet decided last month to fully integrate Home Affairs into the security cluster and thus paved a way towards the pursuit of this new vision that will see the Department re-aligned and re-positioned within our governance system.
 
In line with the National Development Plan (NDP), and the Cabinet’s key outcomes, Home Affairs offers four critical contributions to the nation, that is:

• Enabling economic development, 
• Contributing to national security,
• Enabling effective service delivery, and
• Supporting governance and administration.

Re-imagining Home Affairs means we must not only modernise the Department, but must re-package and position it firmly as a pivotal pillar for the pursuit of these four critical areas, and a reliable partner for ordinary people, government departments and the private sector in pursuit of these goals that are so central to our dreams as a nation.
 
This extensive view of Home Affairs will enable critical partners in the public and private sector to identify their needs and partner with us to fulfil them in the national interest.
 
In this difficult economic climate, Departments must demonstrate their value proposition and the savings they can realise.
 
A modern, secure Home Affairs will require a larger budget and by the end of this year, we will present a business case to Cabinet for approval. 
 
Among others, it will show how a modern, secure Home Affairs will enable government and business to deliver services better, cheaper and faster, drastically reduce fraud and meet the above-mentioned four critical contributions.
 
There will be opportunities for Home Affairs to generate new revenue streams and hence the overall impact of this re-alignment on the fiscus should be positive.
 
In the interim, some of our targets will be affected by budget constraints, but we will strive to use existing resources creatively, and continue to make innovative use of public-private-partnerships (PPPs) such as our current partnership with the banks to expand our footprints, provide new and innovative channels of delivery, expedite the conversion of the Smart-ID Cards and reach out to more clients than we would have by solely relying on our offices.
 
Chairperson,
 
Universal civil registration rests on two legs: early registration of all births within 30 days, and provision of identity documents to all adults.
 
Safeguarding the identity and status of each new South African, and the accuracy of our National Population Register (NPR), depends on this.
 
We have made great strides on early birth registration in recent years.
 
From registering 39% of all births within 30 days in 2010/11, we registered approximately 67% of all births within 30 days in 2015/16.
 
Through consistent information campaigns, stakeholder engagements and the provision of Home Affairs services at 389 health facilities nationwide, – most of which print full birth certificates on the spot – we are making measurable progress on entrenching this norm.
 
Without an accurate NPR we cannot secure our identities, there will be many kinds of fraud and planning for key services such as health and education will be compromised.
 
We will continue working with the Department of Health, community stakeholders and the media to pursue 100% compliance with early birth registration.
 
Chairperson,
 
As you are aware, Home Affairs manages immigration by balancing three overarching objectives: economic development, national security and the fulfilment of our international obligations.
 
We aim to contribute to economic development by facilitating the entry of visitors, tourists, skilled workers and investors into South Africa.
 
In 2015-16 we facilitated 16.1 million movements of foreign nationals entering the country.
 
The number of tourists arriving in South Africa in January increased 15% year-on-year.
 
We also issued 4 424 critical skills visas last year.
 
We finalized 80% of these applications within our target turnaround time of 8 weeks.
 
We now have 25 visa applications centres in 9 high-volume tourism markets around the world, and will increase this to 36 in 12 countries by the end of the year.
 
The Chinese government has consented to us increasing our VFC footprint in that country from 4 to 9, which is unprecedented given China’s strict regulations on foreign visa issuance.
 
We are especially committed to contributing to regional integration in Africa and efforts to ease the movement of Africans on our continent.
 
It is in this context that we launched recent programmes such as the Zimbabwe Special Permit (ZSP), completed last year and the current Lesotho Special Permit (LSP), to regularise our SADC neighbours living in South Africa, and to enhance regional cooperation.
 
We also initiated the first ever community border crossing point between South Africa and Botswana at Tshidilamolomo in the North West province, with the aim to roll these out to other border crossings with selected other neighbouring countries.
 
This year, we will pay more attention to strengthening bilateral and multilateral relations with fellow African countries on migration matters.
 
We have almost completed the implementation of the 2014 immigration regulations, including the long-term multiple-entry visa for business people, academics and frequent travellers to South Africa.
 
We started implementing biometric capture at OR Tambo, King Shaka, Cape Town and Lanseria international airports, which has enabled us to abolish the transit visa and allow prospective travellers – mainly from China – to apply for visas through accredited tourism operators.
 
This year, to further support tourism and inward investment, we will open 2 premium business visa facilitation centres in Port Elizabeth and Durban, with a third likely to be opened in Cape Town.
 
Furthermore, I have directed the department to explore ways to improve our management of international students.
 
International students constitute a key segment which is prioritized by governments globally, because of the economic and social benefits they offer host countries in terms of adding to the skills base, and contributing positively to society more broadly.
 
The first of these initiatives, to be formally launched in the coming weeks, is a special exemption to allow graduate international students in critical skills areas to qualify for permanent residence permits upon graduation.
 
This measure is to ensure that South Africa benefits from all of the skills produced by its universities, and to make it easier for international students who want to work or start business in South Africa after graduation to do so.
 
We should also note that last year, on Africa Day, we held our inaugural Mkhaya Migrant Awards, as a way to acknowledge and celebrate the positive contributions of immigrants in our society.
 
In terms of the new White Paper being developed, issues of the integration of immigrants in our society will receive prominent attention.
 
Chairperson, in terms of the five priorities we outlined last year,
 
First, we are making steady progress to modernise and digitise Home Affairs in order to transfer the inconvenience of service delivery away from the client towards ourselves.
 
The live capture system, which supports the Smart ID Card and the passport, offers South Africans a glimpse into the future of Home Affairs.
 
The modernisation programme seeks to answer the question we asked above about what type of Home Affairs services will today’s newly borns find when they turn 16 years old in future.
 
In this regard, we have issued 4.1 million smart ID cards to date and have met our target of 2.2 million smart ID cards issued last year.
 
We aim to issue another 2.2 million cards this year.
 
Over the next few years, we must replace 38 million ID books with smart ID cards.
 
Live Capture offices have increased from 140 to 178 and all of them now accept payment by cash, credit and debit cards.
 
However, even with 178 modernised offices, getting to 38 million and beyond will pose an enormous challenge.
 
To accomplish this we needed to be creative.
 
Modernisation requires us to develop new channels to serve our clients more conveniently.
 
That is why we developed eHomeAffairs, a ground-breaking, innovative solution in partnership with the banking sector.
 
It is an online platform where customers can apply and pay for smart ID cards and passports, which they can finalize and collect at their bank.
 
Last year, I told you that very soon a client, perhaps named Takalani, would be able to apply on the eHomeAffairs website for her smart ID card.
 
Well, Takalani is here today having used eHomeAffairs to get her smart card without ever stepping foot into a Home Affairs office.
 
Thank you for joining us today Takalani, it was our pleasure to serve you.
 
eHomeAffairs was launched on April 7th by President Jacob Zuma.
 
Four banks have partnered with us to go live and the service is operational at 11 bank branches in Gauteng and one in Western Cape.
 
As of yesterday, close to 8 053 applicants had used eHomeAffairs to apply for smart ID cards and passports.
 
To manage capacity, only applicants who are between 30 and 35 years old are able to apply through eHomeAffairs for now, but this will expand as we also expand the number of participating branches.
 
When we finalise the rollout plan for the eHomeAffairs as well as the conversion plan for the live capture and mobile units, we will review the cut-off date for the green ID book and announce new timelines.
 
However, we are grateful for the partnership and support we have received from the participating banks and industry bodies on this initiative.
 
Other initiatives taking place this year as part of Modernisation include:
 
·         Spending R10 million to digitize 6 million birth paper records in order to improve efficiency and turnaround times by making these most used records electronically accessible at a click of a button,
 
·         Automating birth, marriage and death processes like we do with the Smart ID card and the passport,
 
·         Working with SITA and other service providers to improve system uptime, and
 
·         Exploring options to refresh or upgrade our mobile units to serve remote communities.
 
As we ventured onto rendering our services online, we have strengthened our network and systems security and we will continue to strengthen our cybersecurity capabilities.
 
Secondly, a Business Case for the Border Management Agency (BMA) was submitted to National Treasury in 2015 and Cabinet subsequently approved the draft Border Management Agency (BMA) Bill in September 2015 for introduction to Parliament.
 
Between November 2015 and April 2016 engagements on the draft Bill have been taking place in the National Economic Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC), which should be completed by the end of this month paving the way for the formal introduction of the Bill to Parliament.
 
We launched Operation Pyramid in 2015 aimed at improving our coordinated attempts to secure the borderline environment outside of the Ports of Entry.
 
This year the focus is on change management and finalizing various other organizational establishment tasks for the BMA’s launch.
 
The 1st of April 2017 is the target date for the establishment of the BMA.
 
A concurrent priority in 2016 is to finalize an Integrated Border Management (IBM) Strategy for the country.
 
Thirdly, we registered a PPP with National Treasury last year, and appointed KPMG as a transaction advisor in December 2015 to lead the process towards the revamp of the physical and systems infrastructure of 6 key land ports of entry.
 
Priorities for this year are the completion of the business case in order to apply for the first Treasury Approval by the end of the year.
 
We expect that the final Treasury Approval will be obtained in 2018, paving the way for the commencement of bidding and actual construction by 2018/19.
 
Without a doubt, for such work and in line with the policies of the country, we will be expecting strong BEE, local supply and skills development indicators.
 
Fourthly, we are in the final stages of a review which has been several years in the making of our international migration policy.
 
The Green Paper was finalised in March this year and will, after Cabinet consultation in May, be published for public comment by the end of June, setting in motion a process of extensive public engagement leading to a White Paper published by March 2017, which will form the basis of national policy and future legislation.
 
Fifthly, the Deputy Minister will outline in detail the measures we are taking to improve frontline service, including our key initiative in this area, the Moetapele programme.
 
Chairperson,
 
In the 2016/17 financial year, we are transferring R1.6 billion to the Independent Electoral Commission, and R134 million to the Represented Political Parties’ Fund.
 
No funds are transferred to the Government Printing Works (GPW) as the organisation has been self-funding since 2012, with last year’s revenue exceeding R1 billion.
 
GPW is a key partner in the roll out of our modernisation programme, producing the Smart ID cards and passports at its World Class High-tech Production Facility.
 
The further to enhance its governance framework, I appointed members of the Ministerial Advisory Council that have wasted no time attending to the most urgent tasks I outlined for them when I appointed them.
 
Through its Asset Recapitalisation Programme, GPW will this year complete the construction of the Dispatch Centre for passports and smart ID cards, significantly improving security and efficiency and will also begin the final phase of construction and renovation of the Visagie Street site, which will bring all of GPW’s operations into one state of the art facility, for completion by 2020.
 
The legislation process for the conversion from a Government Component to a State-Owned Company is underway.
 
GPW will pursue its footprints expansion to our counterparts in the SADC and other regions as part of fostering the African agenda.
 
In conclusion,
 
As we continue to re-imagine Home Affairs and deliver new channels of service delivery, we are making visible strides in meeting our performance targets, rising to about 80% in 2015/16, compared to close to 70% in 2014/15 and 50% in 2013/14.
 
Accordingly, we can conclude that this re-imagining of Home Affairs is both meeting the expectations of our clients and creating new levels of excitement for our officials that makes them work hard to pursue our performance targets.
 
In this regard, I would like to thank the Deputy Minister for her tireless work, sterling support and counsel all the time.
 
I also thank the Director-General, his deputies and all our staff for their excellent support and continuously improving service to our nation and Government.
 
Because of them, we live in exciting times today at Home Affairs and are proud to be part of the massive changes our people are today experiencing as a result of this re-imagining effort.
 
I wish to thank the Chairperson and CEO of the IEC, the Chairperson of the Ministerial Advisory Council of GPW and the members of the Council, the CEO of GPW and entire IEC and GPW staff for their hard work, dedication and constructive support.
 
I further would like to thank the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee as well as all the members of the Committee for their support and constructive criticism and guidance in the execution of our mandate.
 
Not least, I would like to thank my wife, Nomachule, children and family for their unwavering support as we continue to execute our mandate and serve our nation.
 
My daughter, Lerato, advised me not to procrastinate today, and I hope I have met her highest expectations and standards.
 
Chairperson, it is my privilege at this moment to table this, the Budget Vote 5 for the Department of Home Affairs before this august House.
 
I thank you.

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Deputy Minister Of Home Affairs, Ms Fatima Chohan, Mp on the Occasion of the Department of Home Affairs’ Budget Vote Debate.
 
The word “organisation” when used as a noun, is defined "as a group of people who work together in a structured fashion, for a shared purpose". A public organisation such as ours consists of over 10 000 people who span the length and breadth of our country, running such an entity is far more complicated as it forms a part of a larger organisation of government which in turn is located as an entity of the State.
 
There is no shortage of books and writings on the experiences of large and successful companies and corporations.
 
The stories of the formidable brands such as Apple, Hyundai, Google and MacDonalds amongst many others are replete with how their employees are key drivers to their success. When the  Minister asked me to lead the Moetapele initiative understanding as he does, the importance of developing a professional outfit of employees to complement the technological advances the department is leading, it  is to these and other learnings that we turned.
 
My task is to develop a world-class level of professional in the organisation and to thereby improve the client experience in our front offices.
 
Barring certain location specific trends, people in the work place behave similarly. There some material differences though, in that public service employees enjoy more benefits and more job security, but unlike an iPad or a burger, our products are personalized to each of our clients. No modern economy can exist without a credible means of differentiating individuals for each other. We are in the business of providing a unique identity profile to each of our clients who present with every wonderful diversity known to the human species. These are challenges no other organisation faces. There are people who have names that are too long to print onto the ID or passport and we have to make accommodation for that. There are people who wish to change their names not once but sometimes up to three times, there are people who alter their sex profiles, there are people whose finger prints can't be captured to a proper standard because their finger prints have been worn out due to their being in the construction or agricultural sectors.  There are people who have children they adopt informally and whose biological parents cannot be found. There is no person that doesn't present with something unique to him or her, hus rendering our operations far more complex and challenging and organic, than merely replicating the exact same burger 1000 times a day.
 
 
Thus the Moetapele initiative was born, to gear our workforce to simply becoming the best performers in the public sector.
 
An organisation is not unlike a human body, with different organs, a brain, a heart, a set of lungs, digestive and reproductive organs all of which fulfill decidedly different functions, but simply have to function optimally for the host to live, to act,  to develop and flourish. When one organ fails, it renders the whole body dysfunctional.
 
We designed Moetapele with a single premise:
Everyone without fail, will be touched by this program that we have collectively decided to call Moetapele or the leader initiative. During the last quarter for instance, the focus was on the role of our cleaners at the front offices. Their role in advancing the self-respecting and proud attitude intrinsic to the Moetapele initiative is without parallel.
 
As part of our striving for excellence, this year 300 managers throughout the length and breadth of our organisation will be taken through advanced management training courses and our frontline staff will be be attending high impact leadership workshops, in all nine provinces. This focus of Moetapele on development of our people will yield superlative dividends into the future.
 
This year in our learning academy, we will train 100 young cadets, combining frontline work experience with classroom learning and upon completion of their exams, they will have achieved, NQF level 5 qualifications, and the coveted National Certificate in Home Affairs Services. In the future every single core function officer will have this qualification,  and further still eventually, no person shall be qualified to be employed at Home Affairs unless they hold this qualification, which will be open to anyone who aspires to join our organisation, which we intend will become an employer of first choice.
 
A Moetapele look and feel has been developed and since the launch of the first Moetapele office in Edenvale early in 2015, the Moetapele team has transformed 36 more offices into Moetapele standard offices. In transforming these offices the following categories are attended to by the able Moetapele Team:
 
1.    Location, layout, maintenance and cleanliness of offices
2.    Adequate signage and public information
3.    Client Flow - which entails responsiveness including standardized responses when dealing with queues and bottlenecks
4.    Consistency of business processes
5.    Management with a purpose - managers are equipped with tools to drive the vision and mission of the organisation and affirm and inspire their colleagues
6.    Measured Admin outcomes such as asset and staff registers
7.    More dynamic customer engagement
 
Moetapele Flagship Offices
 
This year the Moetapele team which is based in the DG's office, will convert a further 38 offices in compliance with the Moetapele standard. In addition a Moetapele standard has been developed for Refugee Reception Centres. The team is now poised to implement this at the Marabastad refugee reception center.
 
Affirming Excellence and Loyal Service
 
Affirmation of employees is a very important aspect that sets great organisations apart from just good ones.  Recognition of employees was advanced through, among other initiatives, the annual Excellence awards, which recognized outstanding individuals, offices as well as our longest serving employees.  Today we want to give recognition to two employees in the gallery that have been with the organisation for 40 years, and we would like to ask them to please rise.
 
Customer Responsiveness
 
We are hard at work upgrading our call centre services thus enhancing our ability to more effectively communicate with our clients. Within four or five weeks we will launch a brand new call centre replete with 120 call-center operators who will field client queries. It is envisaged that this new call centre will more meaningfully assist clients than was the case previously, as the operators will be able to have access to a system that will give them insight into all our digital platforms and they will be able to see where an application is at any given moment in real time.
 
Coal-face Deployment
 
In line with the participation of everyone in Moetapele, we have made it compulsory for all our Senior Managers to spend 5 days in our local offices at the coal face of service delivery. This experience allows managers to gain deep insight into the challenges visited upon our officials who interact with our clients on a day to day basis. Our senior managers have already completed their coal face experiences this year, and they could be found at DHA offices around the country, ports of entry, and refugee reception centres, where they assisted clients, interacted and spent quality time with some of the frontline officials and in a real sense walked in their shoes for a week.
 
This exercise is hopefully entrenched into our operations into the future as it spans the communication gap that usually exists in massive organisations such as ours. It results in insightful policy, and decision-making on the part of senior managers.
 
A great lesson for any manager to learn is never to ask your employees to do something you are unwilling to do yourself. Their random deployment to the frontline allows our senior managers to appreciate the challenges on the ground, but also puts a human face to Head Office for officials who are based in frontline services. It enables them to get first hand information on issues that underpin certain compliance directives and improves their understanding of the issues facing the organisation beyond their offices.
 
This exercise also enables senior managers to identify good practices adopted by frontline offices and capture these in operations throughout the organisation. Our senior managers are also able to spot the up and coming talent in our midst.
 
This year our senior managers were also able to experience and assess first hand the positive outcomes that came with the roll-out of the 38 Moetapele offices country wide.
 
The DDG, who was randomly deployed to one of the Moetapele offices in Pinetown in Kwa-Zulu Natal reports partly as follows:
 
"The systematic way in which the office is managed left many clients happy because of a well-defined workflow process. This demonstrates the early success of our Moetapele Leadership programme which we launched last year with the aim of improving client experience in our offices. The quality of service resonates in the minds of the clients (more than) a beautiful office (would) with terrible staff. We however still do have challenges in certain key areas of our operations which needs urgent attention and these include critical posts that must be funded to ensure that we always have adequate staff in our (ports of entry and) front offices."
 
With the cuts in budgets and the moratorium on filling of any posts in the public sector, announced by the Minister of Finance, Home Affairs faces tough decisions in relation to the continued existence of some of our smaller offices, particularly those smaller offices where we have a presence of a maximum of three officials. If any of them retire or resign, the department would not be able to replace them by recruiting new employees. Given that we have been historically underfunded, we may have to face the possibility of having to consider shutting down some of these offices, unless alternate solutions present themselves.
 
Let me reiterate that an organisation is not unlike a human being. Not only is this analogy true of its construction and functions, but like a human being an organisation has a character, an attitude, a culture, belief system, and aspirations.
 
Mothers amongst us will appreciate that what we are developing here is an organisation that is not just well functioning, but just like a child, is being nurtured into a self-contained,  self-respecting, smart, caring  learning organisation, with a bright future ahead of it.
 
Finally let me relate this to the House as one of my proudest moments this year. When visiting our front office in Paarl, in the Western Cape, I was engaging with people who were queuing outside of our office there. I met a young gay couple who were with their baby, who was conceived through surrogacy. Their journey to this point had obviously been quite an emotional one. I was told that at the hospital where baby Milan was born, the staff and volunteers took a while to acclimatize to their unique family set up. When applying for their child's birth certificate they confessed that they were fraught with apprehension that they would be expected to indicate a mother and a father of the child. They were pleasantly surprised that they were both able to register as fathers without a hassle.
 
It struck me that this was a department not so long ago whose task was to exclude people, which made it almost impossible for people of colour to enter its offices and leave with their dignity unscathed, whose designation with the notorious pencil test determined whether you were deserving of citizenship in the first class.
 
That day in Paarl told me that this organisation has been completely transformed to meet the challenge of our creed that all of humanity is deserving of dignity and shall be equal. That those happy and obviously besotted parents are able to marry at our offices, and the only thing that baby Milan will feel as he grows up, is lucky -  that he has two fathers and lives in a country where everybody is valued.  This is why, my mentors and role models, Mrs Jaffer, Mrs Tinto, Mrs Omar and Mrs Asmal who are here today, I am so Proud of this Organisation, and this country.
 
These are the small but significant victories we should celebrate as a country and as a nation, these are not the stories you will see in the headlines but this is real, this is the reality we struggled for. These are the abiding things that our people should cherish above all,
 
And when there are political leaders amongst us, who stand in these Precincts, and call themselves the champions of the Constitution, yet preach in their churches that all Muslims and homosexuals are sinners, let us not hail them as heroes, and let us not believe them when they claim to be the real champions of the Constitution. They are no Mandelas.
 
I thank you.
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Responses
 

Sluggish service to foreign nationals due to xenophobic culture in department : Haniff Hoosen (DA) Shadow Minister of Home Affairs

Honourable Chairperson, before I begin with matters relating directly to the performance and delivery of the Home Affairs department, allow me please to deal with two matters of public importance.

Firstly, Hon Chairperson, a few years ago, The Minister signed a contract with a company called VFS, this is the company that processes visa applications on behalf of Home Affairs, for people travelling into South Africa. The company has headquarters in India and now also have offices in Dubai. This company charges about R1 300 for each visa application.

When the Minister signed the contract with VFS, he immediately shut down scores of immigration practitioners in the country and thousands lost their jobs. These practitioners, who were mostly small businesses, used to generate revenue for their businesses by assisting travellers to acquire visas.

I wrote to the department about a year ago requesting a copy of the contract with VFS. My request was denied. I then had to file a PAIA application and after all the effort and several requests later, the department still refuses to release the details of that contract. The question therefore is what is there to hide? Why is the department refusing to release the contract with VFS?

Well Chairperson, let me reveal the real reasons why the department has been keeping that contract and all the details around the VFS Tender under lock and key.

Minister Gigaba has made many public announcements about the department’s relationship with a company called VFS Global.

According to their website, there are VFS Offices in 123 countries in the world. On the face of it, it all looks very legitimate. But when a traveller makes a payment to VFS, a receipt is issued, and that receipt is in the name of a company called Islandsite Investments.

And the Directors of that company are two very famous people. Duduzane Zuma and Rajesh Gupta. Here is the evidence Hon Minister. I will gladly let you have a copy of the receipt and proof of the names of the Directors. I don’t think you will ask for these documents because you probably already know.

So Chairperson you can imagine, that the millions of people who travel to our country, are paying the Gupta’s and the Zuma’s even before they arrive here. These crooks are not only fleecing South Africans, they have now upgraded their corrupt operations and will now be raking in billions of rands from foreigners who travel here.

The Gupta’s have not only captured President Zuma, they have also captured our government and now have they have captured the entire tourism industry.

Before any tourist even puts a foot in our country, the Gupta’s get their share first. Any person in the world, who wants to travel to our country for work, business or pleasure, must first pay their share to the Gupta’s.

Then In October 2014, the Minister announced that the permits for approximately 250 000 documented Zimbabwean citizens who were in the country were to be cancelled and a new special permit was then created for them. In order for them to remain in the country, they had to apply for this new permit. And once again, VFS was the company that issued those permits and they scored about R300 million from that deal.

You have to wonder, what was the reason for creating a new permit, when these people were already in possession of a permit in the first place. Well, join the dots and the picture becomes clearer. The Minister makes new regulations for new permits, VFS rakes in the cash, the Gupta’s and the Zuma’s  laugh their way to the bank.

It gets even better. Now Minister Gigaba has recently announced another new permit. This time for citizens of Lesotho. In order for them to stay in the country, legal or illegal, they must obtain the new Lesotho Special Permit. There are an estimate of 400 000 Lesotho citizens in the country and even more are likely to move to SA now that there is a four year permit available for them to live here.

Soon there will be nobody left in Lesotho and guess who will be processing those applications and how many more millions the Gupta’s will be scoring.

So the relationship is simple. Minister Gigaba manufacturers new permits and the Gupta’s rake in the cash.

I want to ask you Honourable Minister, and we all know about your cosy relationships with the Guptas, what was your role in securing this deal for VFS? You cannot deny that you knew nothing about this.

The billions that the Gupta’s and Zuma’s are earning from this deal could have been used to fund the shortfall of this department’s budget quite easily and possibly more. Given the economic conditions that we find ourselves in, the home affairs budget has been slashed by R200 million. So the people of our country still suffer, while the Zuma’s and Gupta’s are laughing their way to the bank.

Today, the Democratic Alliance is calling for a full investigation into how this tender was awarded and what role did Minister Gigaba have in this shady deal.

And then secondly, Hon Chairperson, recent reports in the media indicated that Min Gigaba accompanied President Zuma to Saudi Arabia to open an arms company. Minister, Were you there? Can you please explain what relevance this trip had with home affairs and how home affairs benefitted from your trip to Saudi Arabia.  What exactly was the purpose of your visit?

Hon Chairperson, I turn now to deal with matters of the department.

Chairperson, We must give recognition for some of the advances and good work done by officials in the department of Home Affairs. I have little doubt that good progress has been in a number of areas.

The turnaround time for the processing and delivery of smart IDs for example is commendable. But there is still a long way to go to make the system perfect. Communication and IT related matters continue to frustrate thousands of applicants who spend hours and days in queues to apply for the new ID.

The processing and delivery of passports must also be commended and we have come a long way from the days when it used to take several weeks to receive a passport.

But there are also several areas of poor performance that this department needs to urgently focus on.

Firstly, there still remains a very xenophobic culture in the department. Asylum seekers are treated like vermin and thousands are waiting years for their applications to be processed. They have to travel long distances every month to renew their temporary permits. The longer the department takes to resolve these cases, the more we increase the number of illegal immigrants in the country.

The infamous Lindela repatriation centre is now unable to repatriate people because of a lack of funds. Existing legislation prohibits the holding of detainees for longer than 90 days and they then have to be released.

All the effort and resources used to trace and arrest illegal foreigners then goes to waste. In this very budget debate last year, I warned you Minister that this was going to be problem and while mass arrests of foreigners were underway after the xenophobic violence, insufficient provisions were made for their detention and deportation.

Minister, while we recognise the changes made to the visa regulations and welcome most of them as a step in the right direction, we must point out the damage that your stubbornness has caused to the tourism industry. We told you then, and the whole world told you, that you were playing with fire. And now you got burnt and had to capitulate on your insistence that the visa regulations were the right thing for the country and its security. Well, if you were correct then, why was it necessary to make these changes now? In fact, you had little choice and had to be forced to agree to the changes by your cabinet colleagues. I hope that this is a lesson for you. You do not always have all the answers and sometimes it is important to listen to all the stakeholders instead of being as stubborn as you were.

Now, the very same role-players in the tourism industry have to work twice as hard to recover from the damage to our countries tourism sector and billions of rands in revenue will never be recovered.

Chairperson, millions of South Africans turned up to register as voters over the last registration weekend. The IEC, whilst awaiting the outcome of the Constitutional Court decision, sent out millions of text messages to voters, encouraging them to check their address details.

Hon chairperson, when voters turned up to register for the very first time years ago, there was a form that they needed to complete and address details were required to register. How is it that millions of records have now suddenly disappeared? The IEC did initially have addresses for voters on the voters roll including the forms that voters completed, except in cases where people had informal addresses. Our experience during the last registration weekend indicated that many voters who were originally registered correctly suddenly found themselves without addresses on the voters roll or were allocated an incorrect address.

Minister, are you fully aware of exactly what is going on in the IEC?

Has the IEC lost address records of voters and are we going to find ourselves in a situation where millions of voters will be disenfranchised by this weakness in the IEC.

Chairperson, one of the most frustrating matters to deal with at home affairs is permanent residence applications. It still takes many months and in some cases even years to finalise a permanent residence application and feedback on progress from the department is almost non-existent. It appears that the department is deliberately frustrating attempts by people to discourage them from applying for permanent residence in the country. Again a xenophobic culture which will result in an increase of illegal immigrants when all of these applicants choose to apply through legal channels in the first instance.

Hon Chairperson, there many South Africans whose parents were born in foreign countries and hold dual citizenship. Over the years, the Minister has cancelled the citizenship of thousands of South African citizens living abroad without even informing them and when they attempt to return to the country, immigration officials tear up their passports in the presence of these citizens. This practice, we believe is unconstitutional and the DA is giving you notice Hon Minister that we will be fighting this to the bitter end.

Chairperson, notwithstanding some of the very serious problem that I have explained, we must give recognition for the work done by the Minister, Deputy Minister and departmental officials. Home Affairs is a very busy portfolio and MPs receive scores of queries and complaints from the public. I want to thank Mr Apleni, Mr Jacky Mackay, Mr Vusi Mkhize and Mr Thulani Mavusao for their ongoing assistance whenever we call on them.

I also want to extend my appreciation to the two lovely ladies at the DA office, Carmen Veldsman and Tanya Samuels who work tirelessly to assist me with queries from ordinary members of the public.

Chairperson, under Minister Gigaba, Home Affairs has indeed made some good progress. But I do have one last request for the Hon Minister.

Will you please Sir, do whatever it takes to sort out these problems, at least within the next three years? I worry, that if you don’t, then by 2019, the DA will have to clean up your mess when we take over your office.

I thank you.

Department must address challenges at home affairs offices across the country: Archibold Figlan DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Home Affairs

Honourable Chairperson

South Africa is a better place today than it was before 1994. In a few days’ time we will celebrate freedom day and we can be proud that more South Africans today enjoy the freedom and success of our democratic dispensation.

The Home Affairs department played a significant part in this process and more South African’s today feel a sense of ownership to our country and no longer feel like slaves in their own country. We have come a long way from the days of the dompas system.

While we celebrate these freedoms, we must not also become soaked in self-praise but rather keep challenging ourselves to make progress to better the lives of our people.

We must be honest and open about our failures and give credit for our successes.

Chairperson, over the years there has been consistent underspending in immigration services. This is something that the DA has been raising for several years now especially since the work of this department is critical to securing our borders. We welcome the increase in expenditure towards immigration services and trust that this will go a long way in addressing the many challenges in this programme.

We note the decrease of allocation in this budget by almost R200 million and wish to express our concern that this will have a significant impact to the citizens of our country.

There is still a lot of progress that needs to be made with the registration of new births. Too many of the birth registry systems in hospitals are either not staffed or have connectivity problems. There are also connectivity problems with many of the mobile offices and unless this problem is addressed, the department will never achieve its intended outcomes.

Hon Minister, whilst you and your senior departmental officials are working hard to address the challenges of the department at a senior level, staff at home affairs offices across the country still lack professionalism and the manner in which they deal with the public is both unacceptable and embarrassing. We receive reports everyday of staff at home affairs who are rude and unhelpful. We call on your office to ensure that citizens are treated with respect and dignity and ensure that complaints from the public are dealt with speedily. I must recognise however, that at the same time there are many offices where dedicated staff do well to serve this department and they must also be given credit for the work they do.

Of recent, we have been receiving many complaints from members of the public that there documents go missing in transit. We welcome the move to digitization and hopefully this will prevent an occurrence from this in the future.

Hon Minister the lack of communication from your office to the public is a matter that needs to be dealt with urgently. For example, changes have been made to new visa regulations but there is still mass confusion.

Smart IDs are only available to persons born in the country and many people who do not know this spend hours in the queues only to be turned away after reaching the counters. Many counter officials are not even aware of some of the decisions adopted by your head office and more training of counter officials is required.

Okunye mphathiswa kukuvalwa ke ofisi phambi kwethuba lokuvala e centurion apho abantu baye bavalelwa ngaphandle kungekho nengcaciso yoko.

Ndiye ndakhalaza ku DDG Mkhize owathi uzobuyela kum kunanamhlanje ndisalindile.

Kuloo mphathiswa ndithi kufuneka sibahloniphe abantu bomzantsi afrika.

Ndiyabulela kakhulu.

Debate Speech by Hon DM Gumede on Home Affairs

Hon Chairperson and Hon members

We have heard that Mam Winnie is in hospital and we wish her a speedy recovery, our hearts are with her in that lonely hospital bed.

Honorable Chairperson, beginning on that sad note, the ANC supports adoption of the budget report for the Department of Home Affairs.

By the time I'm finished, Hon Chairperson, you'll have a better understanding of what the budget wants to achieve In terms of immigration affairs and issues related thereto; what is the amount, on what it will be spent on, and the ANC honestly believes will be to the benefit of all South Africans Black and White.

The mandate of the DHA is that of safeguarding the identity and status of citizens and foreign nationals, and to provide for the management of immigration to ensure security, promote development and fulfill South Africa's international obligations.

The immigration Affairs branch determines the status and identity of foreigner nationals, regulates immigration through permitting and movement control systems and provide for consular services abroad.

In addition to the above, the Immigration Affairs section also processes and determines the status of asylum seekers and refugees as well as operate centers nationally in this regard.

Out of a total budget allocation for the Department of Home Affairs this financial year of R 7 358.7 of which R 645.2 is allocated for immigration services.

Given the budget constraints as announced in the SONA by our President, everyone has to do more with less given the local and global economic climate.

The modernization programme is working well, where it has been implemented and according to many reports its now a delight to be at many Home Affairs offices. We congratulate the department and encourage them to even improve on that.

In order to strengthen border control, the DG reported that the BMA is to be established by 2017, and we believe that it will assist and beef up border control and stop illegal immigrants from getting into South Africa. The current system of having a multi departmental Control is having a lot of problems in terms command and control. In this agency command and control will be from one centre and therefore we believe it will be more economical, efficient and above all it will be effective.

The establishment of the BMA has not been without problems though.

It has been delayed by the remaining issues raised at NEDLAC which are:

. Agencification
. Questioning the Powers of the Minister
. The right to strike and
. A lack of conflict resolution mechanisms.

The DG further indicated that issuance of refugee identity and travel documents needed to be automated to address service backlogs; and we agree for we want experiences at the offices of home affairs to be a delight.

The feasibility study for the building of the Reception offices close to land borders would be completed and submitted to the Minister of Home Affairs and all Ports of entry will be equipped with biometric systems by 2018/19 according to the Department, and to that we say the sooner the better.

Indeed South we all want a South Africa that is secure and feels secure.

Sometimes there are inherent tensions between facilitating travel for economic reasons like tourist entry and border control. We are happy though that the President appointed a very effective IMC under the leadership of the Deputy President;which has managed to strike a delicate balance between our security and economic realities. Siyabonga!

The pull factors of our economy and social stability has attracted many economic migrants and refugees and this sometimes results in tensions between immigrant communities and some citizens and this is not limited to our beautiful country, it happens elsewhere.

Where our citizens break the law, let us be clear - we strongly condemn those who attack some foreign nationals and loot as well as destroy their shops.

However we also believe that foreign nationals also have a duty to assist security agencies identify those who among them are trafficking drugs as well as those who traffic children; and where they trade they should trade within the laws and bye laws of the country.

There have been instances of some foreigners taking the law into their hands by shooting our children, using illegal firearms nogal. We know that it is only a few among them that commit these acts and we therefore ask the many to work with our security agencies in rooting criminals from their communities.

Foreign nationals that take the law into their hands cause a lot of complications that our enemies call xenophobia for it to suit their geopolitical agenda in Africa and globally, using our innocent ignorance.

Otherwise many foreign nationals are contributing to make South Africa a better place and we thank them for that.

We thank the minister and his fellow cluster ministers for going on awareness campaigns, around the width and breadth of South Africa in promoting better relations between our compatriots and the foreign nationals.

We welcome the department's plan to employ more immigration inspectors to be better capable to deliver on their mandate of making South Africans safe and feel safe.

The ANC urges that the budget allocation of the Department be increased as it has now been classified as a security department. It will need much more eyes, more ears as well as foot soldiers to execute its mandate of making South Africans safe and to make them feel safe.

Then respond to opposition and highlight the good we have done.