Provincial Home Affairs Performance Reports, 1st quarter 2012: Free State, North West, KwaZulu-Natal

Meeting report

Free State Status Report
Mr Bonakele Mayekiso, Provincial Manager: Department of Home Affairs Free State, outlined the achievements, challenges and plans of the provincial DHA to the Committee.

Highlights for the 2011/12 FY were:
• Nine hospitals in the Free State province had been connected to the DHA network so it was possible to register children at birth at these hospitals.
• The DHA footprint had expanded in the local municipalities of Clocolan, Petrusburg and Frankfort.
• Directors and assistant directors had been appointed in order to improve monitoring and control.
• The province bought twelve new cars for increased mobility.
• Stakeholder relations with local communities had improved through stakeholder forums.
• The provincial DHA played a crucial role in clearing international dignitaries during the ANC Centenary celebrations.

The DHA in the Free State was planning to:
• Connect five more hospitals to the DHA network in order to register births as well as deaths directly.
• Appoint 104 more employees.
• Continue to profile communities living along the borders of the province.
• Register and profile all foreign-owned businesses in the province.

Discussion
Mr M Mnqasela (DA) was worried about how the process of profiling foreigners was done in order to prove to the SA citizens that the foreigners were in SA legally.

Mr Mayekiso replied that the profiling of foreigners was done in two ways. Foreign owned businesses were profiled as well as well as foreign individuals in the border area. The local people accused the DHA of allowing illegal immigrants into the country. The DHA had to prove that the people were inside the country legally and that their documents were authentic. The DHA also helped SAPS to check the documents of foreigners because it could identify fraudulent documentation better.

As provincial head of DHA he was expected to be able to answer his superiors when they wanted to know how many foreigners were in his province. The Free State had no refugee centre. The DHA officials had to ask the person where in the country he registered. The DHA was working with the police. The DHA had to get an idea of the number of foreigners in the province.

Mr Mnqasela asked what caused the fall in requests for reprints of already issued IDs. Did the official think that people kept their IDs safe, because it was currently more expensive to acquire one?

Mr Mayekiso replied that if one analysed it, one would say that it was because it was more expensive. It used to be R20. It was now R140 to have a new ID made. The impression he had was that when the IDs cost R20, people easily had another one made, but currently, at R140, they made a point of finding their lost and misplaced IDs. He was not 100% sure but this was the reason also for the high volume of uncollected IDs.

Ms H Makhuba (IFP) asked what the 15-16 year-olds said they did with their IDs to explain the number of re-issues for this age group.

Mr Mayekiso replied the DHA had to ask them to write down the reasons.

Mr Mnqasela asked how long it took to get a temporary and permanent resident permit to the client? In future he wanted to see a breakdown of how long each stage of the application took. The department had to take responsibility for each stage of that application.

Mr Mayekiso replied that there had been a suggestion to divide the timelines between front-office and back-office. The timeline for front-office was two days. All applications had to be sent to Head Office within two days after the application had been filed. It then took three months to come back to the province. When the document arrived at the office where the application was lodged, it had to be scanned and the scanning process triggered the process for an SMS to be sent to the client’s mobile number to fetch his document.

Mr Mnqasela said the presentation stated that the Free State province had set as a target the revival of three stakeholder forums. This was worrisome as it predicted that the stakeholder forums would die. The Committee wanted optimistic targets.

Mr Mayekiso replied that at beginning of the year there were plans that all stakeholder forums would meet monthly, but some had problems because the chairpersons did not show up for meetings etc. Stakeholder forums operated on the ground and in most cases the chairpersons were people from the district who had to help transport people to the stakeholder forum meeting. Referring to the target to revive three stakeholder forums, the person who asked the question said it was as if three were expected to die. It was not the case. He said it started with the Metro. The Metro was launched as a district. When it became a metro, it needed to be re-launched. The people who were involved originally, were no more involved.

Mr Mnqasela asked why there was overspending on subsidies. The threshold for the quarter was 25%.

Mr Mayekiso replied that this depended on who was being transferred and who resigned. This money was for people who transferred or resigned. They were paid out of this money. Head office used to do it, but the province did it currently.

Mr Mnqasela was worried about corruption. To what extent was the province dealing with it. Was there a plan to deter members from doing it?

Mr Mayekiso replied that the Free State did not have a corruption prevention programme. The security personnel went out to create security awareness amongst office staff. He agreed that there had to be a focus on corruption prevention as well.

Mr Mnqasela referred to the fact that only six out of eleven mobile offices were functional, because the satellites did not work. The service provider did not serve the department well.

Mr Mayekiso replied that the satellite connection of these mobile offices had to be sorted out.

Ms P Maduna (ANC) asked how the department made sure that undocumented foreigners did not come back after having been deported.

Mr Mayekiso replied that the deported came back and had to be re-deported over and over again. DHA did not have any control over their coming back.

Ms Maduna accused the department of not taking seriously its own targets to employ disabled employees.

Mr Mayekiso replied that he was worried about the employment of disabled people. This was why the provincial department approached an NGO that worked with disabled people to provide suitable candidates for the department to employ.

Ms Maduna asked how likely the 35 posts were to be filled. Were there budget allocations for the posts?

Ms G Bothman (ANC) said regarding the filling of posts, the Committee had to take a decision to take the matter to management. Posts were funded, but were never filled.

Mr M De Freitas (DA) agreed that the issue of posts be put on the agenda for the next committee meeting.

Mr Mayekiso explained when OR Tambo closed, some of the staff were placed at other posts. Others went for training. The 35 posts would be filled by some of those trainees.

Mr Mayekiso replied that the province repeatedly asked for the recruitment and employment process to be decentralised. The province had to send a request to Head Office to advertise. Head Office then placed the advertisement. The DG said it had to be speeded up. The province wanted the right to advertise its available posts which would speed up the process.

Mr De Freitas said the presentation stated that the department was under-resourced. What was the problem? Funds?

Mr Mayekiso replied that the border posts were under-resourced. There were 271 people currently undergoing training. The Free State province would get some of them for the Maseru border post.

Ms Bothman asked for the graphic which depicted the footprint of offices. She asked what the red heart and the rectangle meant. For example, the Xhariep district had a heart. Did it mean there was an office in all three towns, or there was one office to service all three towns? What did the province intend to do about the situation?

Ms Bothman said there was a need for more offices. What was the department planning in terms of making sure that more offices were available? What were the interim measures? The problematic issues could not be tackled if there were no offices.

Mr Mayekiso replied that, for example the district of Xhariep consisted of 19 towns, but there were only three offices. The rest of the towns were serviced by mobile trucks and cars, which were stationed at the municipal offices on certain days of the week. It was a challenge to make the service readily available to all the residents.

The question was asked: What was done in the interim to alleviate the problem?

Mr Mayekiso replied that, for example, at Tzaneen and Pietersberg, connectivity was established at the local hospitals where births and deaths could be registered.

Ms Makhuba asked whether the Committee could get a list of connected hospitals, because it would need the list for oversight purposes.

Mr Mayekiso replied that the list of hospitals was available.

Ms Bothman asked why only 2 577 out of 6 687 possible IDs had been issued to matriculants in the Free State. What were the reasons?

Mr Mayekiso replied that 6 687 matriculants registered. He did not have the number of IDs issued to matriculants in the first quarter available, but would be able to provide the information at a later stage. The intention was to issue the majority during the first quarter.

Ms Bothman said she had been to Maseru recently. Using the border post was a nightmare. She had to wait three to four hours to park the car. The gate was too narrow and the infrastructure was a problem. When the Committee visited the site for oversight, the border post said that the situation was being attended to. She was not sure how the situation had changed. It was frustrating.

Ms Bothman said Lesotho wanted an open border. She was not sure what the condition was currently at the Peka Bridge border post. It used to be like going into the bushes. She could see by the numbers that there had been an increase of people going through that border gate. Was there an improvement?

Mr De Freitas was concerned about the border post at Maseru, where the official reported a dire lack of infrastructure. What was the problem? Could the Portfolio Committee intervene or assist?

Mr Mayekiso replied that the Maseru border post was a problem for the DHA. The relationship with the stakeholders had improved. The traffic situation used to be chaotic. The SAPS was then given the duty to control the traffic flowing into the border post. The SAPS currently only allowed a limited number of cars in at a time. This eased the congestion within the border post, but caused long queues of cars backing up. The DG mentioned that the Maseru border post was a priority for this financial year. The border posts were managed by the BMCC (?). The buildings were managed by Department of Public Works. These were priorities for this financial year. Department of Public Works had the money to change the infrastructure. There were two roads that lead to the Peka Bridge border post. The one road went through Tlokolan and went through the veld. This border post used to be only manned by SAPS. Now the DHA was also present there. The numbers were also increasing at Peka Bridge. The infrastructure and the road approaching the border post were both bad.

Mr De Freitas asked how DHA was involved in the documentation of foreign dignitaries during the 100^th Anniversary Celebrations of the ANC.

Mr Mayekiso replied that heads of state had come into the country and DHA had to clear them.

Mr De Freitas asked whether the IT system of the department allowed for children to be registered at birth and then be tracked so that they were issued IDs automatically when they turned 16. This system existed in the Scandinavian countries. Was the department thinking of developing in that direction?

Mr Mayekiso replied that it would be good to be able to track children from 0-16 years, but the country was not there yet. The DHA was modernising its systems and would eventually be able to do it.

Mr De Freitas asked how it was possible to have duplicate ID numbers when the department generated all ID numbers. If it was computerised, DHA then had to be able to track duplicated ID numbers.

Mr Mayekiso replied that the TBVC states had ‘dompas’. ID numbers were then allocated to the ‘dompas’. Some then applied without the ‘dompas’ for an ID and got another ID number. That’s how people ended up with two ID numbers. Front Office DHA staff gave fake ID numbers to foreigners who wanted SA ID numbers. When the real SA owner of that ID number then applied, there were duplicate IDs.

Mr Mnqasela asked how long it took to sort out queries.

Mr De Freitas referred to unfinished queries and reasons for delays. The documents needed to be physically found in the warehouse. Could the documents not be microfiched and arranged into a kind of searchable database in order to find documents quicker and more efficiently in order to speed up the tempo at which queries were resolved?

Mr Mayekiso replied that it was difficult to sort out queries immediately. The information had to be available electronically. DHA had made half of it available electronically. In Pretoria was a warehouse where documents had to be physically searched for and found, in order to resolve queries.

Mr De Freitas asked why employees were vetted. What did the process involve?

The Chairperson asked whether an official of the department did the vetting or whether it was the National Intelligence Agency (NIA). In her opinion the NIA should be doing it.

Mr Mayekiso replied that an official interviewed the prospective employee and filled in the forms, after which it was handed over to the NIA to continue the vetting process.

Mr Mayekiso replied that the DHA wanted to profile its staff properly.

Mr De Freitas asked why the relationship between DHA and other government departments differed in different provinces. In the North West there was a good relationship. In the Free State DHA had no access to the Department of Health systems. Were these relationships personality based? Could the Committee intervene by speaking to the ministers concerned to assist both departments?

Mr Mayekiso replied that the DHA had a good relationship with the hospitals in all the provinces. The problems lay with the bandwidth of the networks available in hospitals. Home Affairs needed more bandwidth to run its network.

Ms Bothman said DHA had to have a template which corresponded with the strategic plan. It then had to report to the Committee against this template in order to make clear to what extent it had reached its targets.

Mr Mayekiso replied that the directive of the template was noted and the report would follow the template in the future.

Mr De Freitas referred to the presentation where it referred to the local office averages. According to him the numbers did not match. The Thaba Nchu office was closed due to non-compliance. Why was it allowed to happen? It sounded like DHA had slipped up.

Mr Mayekiso replied that the province had been asking for five years for the offices at Thaba Nchu to be repaired. The province had to work through the Department of Public Works (DPW). All the buildings in the town were owned by one person. He refused to repair the building and ignored requests.

Mr De Freitas asked if the buildings were not compliant and owners did not want to make repairs, was there no legislation to force him to renovate the building? Why was DHA not fighting him on the issue? Public Works was a thorn in everybody’s side.

Mr De Freitas referred to fraudulent marriage-, death- and birth certificates. Why would people want to forge these documents? How were they caught out?

Mr Mayekiso replied that people rented people to lie for them at DHA, because they wanted a SA ID.

Mr De Freitas asked what the reasons were for registration of birth applications being rejected. How or why would people lie about deaths and births? How was it investigated? What happened if a person was found guilty?

Mr Mayekiso replied that people registered the death of a live person in order to claim insurance. For example, this live person would go to the bank to do a transaction, where he would be told that he had ‘died’ and his account was dormant. He would then come to Home Affairs to find out why he had been declared dead and who did it.

Mr Mayekiso added that people appeared at 15, 20 or 30 years of age and claimed they were SA citizens although they had no record of existence in SA. Some claimed their parents died. They then asked someone to pretend to be their aunt. Sometimes the rented person admitted under questioning that s/he was lying. This application was then rejected.

Mr De Freitas asked what DHA was doing in cases where the person was a legitimate SA citizen, but not documented due to the apartheid past. What was DHA doing to enfranchise people disenfranchised in the past?

The Chairperson said that the Committee would have to discuss with the Director General what would be done about orphans, where an aunt or grandmother was left to care for the child.

Mr Mayekiso replied that the issue of Late Registration of Birth was a reality. People were born and grew up on farms and many births were never registered. There was a local committee which interviewed these applicants. If the committee declined their application, they could go to the provincial committee. If the provincial committee declined their application they could appeal to the Deputy Director General.

The Chairperson asked whether the province had performed performance assessments.

Mr Mayekiso replied that in previous financial years DHA had been fully assessed and he assured the Chairperson that by September 2012, everybody would have been assessed.

North West Status Report
Ms Irene Mantlhasi, Acting Provincial Manager, DHA, North West, outlined the achievements, challenges and plans of the provincial DHA to the Committee.

In this province there were 1 174 posts of which 585 (50%) were filled as at 1 April 2012 and 67 posts (6%) were currently funded but vacant.

The province had eight land ports and one airport. Landports: Derdepoort, Kopfontein, Swartkopfontein, Skilpadhek, Ramatlabama, Mokgobistad, Mokopong and Bray. The airport was Pilanesberg Airport. Kopfontein,Skilpadhek and Ramatlabama were commercial ports.

The presentation provided a list of the hospitals where births could be registered directly. At some hospitals the network was not yet available and the documents could not be printed on the premises, but the information was collected and the completed documents were taken back to the recipient (see presentation)

The department had a 1^st Quarter target to register 7 234 births within the first 30 days, which it exceeded by 125% when it registered 9 048. This system was clearly achieving some success.

The provincial department created a database of all learners in Grade 10-12 in the province. This would enable it to know beforehand to whom it had to issue first time documents.

The provincial department listed amongst its challenges a lack of holding cells for illegal foreigners, resources for its inspectorate, office accommodation and bandwidth at hospitals.

Discussion
The Chairperson said officials were moved from the one office to go and work in Makapanstad. If these staff members had to work at another office, who did their work at their own office?

Ms Mantlhasi said they would not take people from other offices. The staff would all be new appointees. Only the head would be a person with more experience.

Ms Maduna asked how soon DPW would demolish the old buildings at the Skilpadshek border post.

Ms Mantlhasi was not sure when the offices would be demolished. When meeting with Department of Public Works this week, they would discuss it. For the African Confederated Cup Tournament in 2013, she submitted the border post of Skilpadshek to be the point of entry. The old offices needed to be demolished and the area needed to be paved. More monthly meetings with Department of Public Works in the province and would put more pressure on them.

Ms Maduna asked how undocumented migrants were managed in the absence of holding cells.

Mr Mnqasela asked how illegal immigrants were handled in the absence of holding facilities.

Ms Mantlhasi replied that foreigners were sent to the police cells. The relationship with SAPS was not the big issue. The arrested foreigners ran away if there was nowhere to put them while being processed. After arrest, they were not supposed to mix with people on business in the DHA office.

Mr De Freitas asked whether deportees were tracked after deportations. Could they be tracked or marked on the system?

Ms Maduna asked what the Department did for Mandela Day.

Ms Mantlhasi said people were given a chance to register with Home Affairs on Mandela Day. People were educated about IDs and birth certificates. Apart from Mandela Day, DHA was asked to submit a programme for Mandela Month. DHA identified a school with disabled learners in the North West. Staff members contributed R50 from their own pockets, and they bought groceries for the school.

Ms Maduna chaired the meeting temporarily at this point. She asked how many people were registered on Mandela Day.

Ms Mantlhasi said she would send the statistics to Head Office. She did not have it on hand.

Ms Maduna asked how DHA decided who had to go for training. She asked what the Committee should do about the seven vehicles that were in accidents. How did it influence the work of the provincial department?

Mr Stephen Tiley, National Director of Finance, said that the province just reported on the vehicles. The vehicles had far distances to travel and accidents happened.

Ms Maduna said the low number of disabled employees employed by DHA was disturbing.

Ms Mantlhasi said the situation with employees with disabilities was noted. The department was not doing well in this regard and it had asked the help of Head Office. It also asked for a database from the Department of Labour in order to see who needed to be employed.

Ms Bothman said Makapanstad and Bray did not spend their budgets. The problem was the issue of the roads. The Department of Public Works had to build interlinking roads. Roads were very important to the economic wealth of the country.

Ms Bothman asked what happened at the Ganyesa Home Affairs office. Only 13 of the rented containers were being used. Forty of the rented containers were not being used. They were rented at R134 000 per month.

Ms Mantlhasi replied that 42 modular units were allocated to Ganyesa. They were put down haphazardly. They were not arranged and finished off. The province made a submission to Head Office stating that it only used 13 containers with 21 unused. The unused containers were taken back by the supplier. All 42 were paid for in 2009.The province was still trying to get back the R2.9m paid for the unused containers.

Ms Bothman said no mention was made of Botshabelo Health Care Centre and others as places where births could be registered. She did not know whether these were omissions.

Ms Bothman said that a big education campaign was needed. DHA needed an educative wing to assist the community with such matters as the handling of foreign nationals, birth and death registrations.

Ms Bothman thought there was a budget for the airport at Mmabatho. As far as she knew, it was not functional and maybe should be revived. The district office was Dr Ruth Mompathi. The non-funded vacant post of district manager was a problem.

Mr Stephen Tiley replied that Mmabatho Airport was actually Pilanesberg Airport.

The Chairperson asked Mr Mayekiso whose responsibility it was to appoint district managers, Head Office or provincial managers?

Mr Mayekiso replied that the delegation of appointments rested at director level, so it would be a DDG or the DG. Who had to advertise if the post was funded? The provincial manager had to request that it be advertised.

Ms Bothman wanted to talk about the need for the DHA office to be closer to Jouberton than to Klerkdorp as Jouberton was bigger in terms of the spread of people staying there. Then there was Stilfontein, Potchefstroom and the surrounding farms. There had to be an office there. The Department of Public Works building close to Jouberton had been cheap. Now the office was in the centre of Klerksdorp, it was expensive and far from the people. People from Jouberton used to walk to Home Affairs. Now they could not access Home Affairs without spending transport fare.

Ms Bothman asked whether justice was being done to Rustenberg. It was big and scattered and difficult to access. The Committee had to look at what could be done.

Ms Gasebonwe referred to the dysfunctional mobile offices. During outreaches, the North West asked Gauteng to assist. Was this not burdensome on Gauteng? It had its own clients to service. How did it affect service delivery? How often were the mobile offices serviced?

Ms Mantlhasi asked Gauteng to assist when the North West had outreach actions. It then used Gauteng’s trucks which had functional satellite connections. The provinces helped each other. She hoped the good relationship would continue so that the people did not suffer. She noted the burden aspect of it.

Ms Mantlhasi replied that the dysfunctional mobile units would be addressed with their principals.

Mr Mnqasela said the issue of dysfunctional mobile offices had to be raised in earnest with Head Office. If the service provider had to be removed to remedy the situation, this had to happen, because it undermined the core values and mandate of the department.

Ms Bothman said the mobile offices did not visit often enough. It was only 40km from the Botswana border and there were many illegal immigrants living in the area and working on the farms. Their children went to school in SA without birth certificates. This area included Gemsbok and Tosca, Pomfret. All these people were being serviced by Ganyesa. The distance from there to Ganyesa was 110km and there was no transport. The Chief has agreed to allocate an office to DHA in order to assist the people.

Mr Mnqasela asked which procedures were followed, resulting in unpaid suspensions. What was the nature of such cases? How did it affect expenditure?

Ms Makhuba also asked which procedures were followed resulting in unpaid suspensions.

Ms Mantlhasi said a senior official who did not sign his performance agreement had been suspended without pay for two months.

A senior manager had an emergency travel document made without paying for it. The same person used the state’s camera. These offences resulted in suspension without pay.

Mr De Freitas asked, referring to the challenges, that there were inadequate bandwidth at the hospitals. Was there another solution to the problem?

Ms Mantlhasi said the inadequate bandwidth was acceptable for email, but not for the network demands of the Home Affairs network. The hospital CEOs had requested bandwidth upgrading, but it took long.

Ms Makhuba agreed with Mr Mnqasela that there were issues that had to be discussed with Head Office. With all the presentations thus far the same issues came up: disability, duplicate IDs, and the mobile satellite offices.

Ms Makhuba asked what could be done about uncollected IDs as these were sent back to Head Office after six months.

Ms Mantlhasi said some offices went door to door. Some people who applied for IDs did not have cell phones and could not get the SMS notification.

The department also used the local newspapers and radio stations to trace ID recipients.

Ms Makhuba asked whether provinces could handle their own queries or whether it had to be finalised by the national office.

Ms Mantlhasi said some queries had to be resolved by the province and some by Head Office.

When making out death certificates, officials sometimes found there was already a death registered. There were people assigned to deal with this kind of query immediately.

Ms Mantlhasi referred to Klerksdorp/Botshabelo Dikgane. The province had a letter that confirmed the space. Alabama was better than Dikgane. She had taken the advice of putting an office at Vostershoop. She looked at the distribution of the population in that area. She made submissions to Head Office to name the offices of DHA in a more logical way in terms of their geographical location. She asked Head Office to create a new budget and address this issue.

Mr Mnqasela observed from the presentation that there was an absence of accountability in the area of asset management. Many items were lost and unaccounted for. There was no cost structure either. The AG was focussing on asset management. If DHA wanted to improve towards a clean audit, it had to do much better.

Mr Tiley said the asset management register was a work in progress. The department was working on it and would submit it on 10 August 2012.The first round of verification had happened. Re-verification was done. This happened in cases where barcodes had fallen off. It was also for cases where a computer went back to a supplier for a service and a replacement computer was lent to the user. The picture was not as bad as it appeared. The report as it stood created a distorted picture.

Mr De Freitas pointed out the unfilled DHA posts to the extent that even the Provincial Manager presenting her report was doing so in an acting capacity.

Ms Mantlhasi replied that Head Office had to answer for the acting capacity she found herself in.

KwaZulu Natal Status Report
Mr Albert Matsaung, Acting Provincial Manager, DHA, KwaZulu Natal, outlined the achievements, challenges and plans of the provincial DHA to the Committee.

KwaZulu Natal accommodated 21% of the country’s population which amounted to more than 10 milllion. It had 10 district municipalities and one metro council. Durban was also the busiest container port and Richards Bay was the biggest bulk cargo port in Africa.

It achieved its target of registering 6% of births within the first quarter within the first 30 days of birth. 10 more health facilities had been connected to the DHA network over the last financial year.

100% of its matriculants had been issued with ID documents which were required to write matric exams in 2012.

Only 6 out of its 766 staff were disabled, which was a negative. Ninety per cent of its available posts were filled leaving 86 funded posts vacant.

Challenges include issuing refugee ID and travel documents, a lack of asylum transit permits, maintaining stakeholder forums and big volumes of late registration of birth applications.

Discussion
Ms Bothman said the visiting junior staff did a great job addressing the issues raised when the Committee visited the province. The template had to be attached to a strategic plan so that members could follow. It was the kind of management one expected from the provinces.

The Committee wanted to see what the sources of the money DHA made were, as well as what it was spent on.

Mr Matsaung said he noted the compliments from members. It was the duty of officials to listen when they were advised.

The Chairperson said the national department was profiling foreigner communities. The department in KwaZulu Natal was receiving calls. The Department was accused of issuing documents to people in Matatiele. It was registration. The DHA needed to know who was in the country. First the Zimbabweans would be profiled and then the others.

Mr Mnqasela stated that it was the first time he heard that the State Information Technology Agency (SITA) took over from Sentech in managing the mobile offices. He said a name change meant nothing unless the problem was eradicated. Twelve out of seventeen mobile offices were still dysfunctional. He commended KwaZulu Natal on engaging the DoE and local government. When making IDs, it sponsored the photos. It stepped into the divide and had to be commended for its initiatives.

Ms Makhubu said the Committee’s visit to KwaZulu Natal paid off. Were any solutions considered for what was happening at Gate 6? How could the loopholes be closed? People had farms on both sides of the border and moved through the border freely.

The Chairperson said the issue of people crossing the border from Lesotho to come and draw pensions in SA stemmed from when Nelson Mandela took the resolution that the people from Lesotho who had worked in the mines in SA, could come and register for IDs and draw SA pensions. The demarcation of borders also contributed negatively to this problem. Some families were divided amongst three countries: SA, Mozambique and Swaziland. She did not know how to address this problem.

Mr Matsaung replied that the Gate 6 visit triggered something. The province received a letter from Thembe Kraal. The chief requested Home Affairs to re-register all the people. They called and wrote. The people were disadvantaged. They needed to be re-registered into SA. The departments asked them to provide names and numbers of those who already had SA IDs. The province was waiting for the numbers.

Mr De Freitas asked about advertising for funded unfilled posts. Why did this not happen earlier? Why was there a delay? Who did the job in the mean time?

Mr Naneen Singh, Director: Financial Support, replied that advertising did not happen earlier, because there was a drive to clean out payroll. Project Takame was allocated budget. It would be finalised in March of 2012. If there were previously 200, there was money allocated for 100. The recruitment process was underway.

The question was asked: Who performed the functions supposed to be performed by people in the vacant posts.

Mr Singh replied that the staff already in the office performed these functions.

The Chairperson thanked the acting provincial manager of KwaZulu Natal for the province’s good work. She wanted it to be repeated in other provinces as well. She wanted the province to graduate from a qualified audit opinion to an unqualified audit opinion. She would raise issues with the acting managers and see how the Committee could assist them in order to make sure people were doing their work.

The issue of the mobile truck offices was a problem. Regarding Late Registration of Birth, the collective had to see how the loopholes which currently existed could be closed. Many SA citizens did not have proper documentation. They could not be shut out. DHA and its partners had to come together to see how these people could be assisted so that they could improve their lives.

The meeting was adjourned.