Department of Home Affairs 4th Quarter 2014/15 Performance

Meeting report

Briefing by Department o fHome Affairs
Mr Mkuseli Apleni, Director-General, Department of Home Affairs (DHA) briefed the Committee on the Fourth Quarterly Performance Report, highlighting achieved and non-achieved targets as well as challenges the Department was facing.

Mr Apleni focussed on aspects supporting both the Outcome of Government and the National Development Plan; the Department outcomes and related strategic objectives; overview of progress and challenges as from January to March 2015; progress against quarter four targets per programme; financial performance and priorities going forward.

With regards to the National Development Plan (NDP), the immediate priority for DHA was to facilitate the acquisition of critical skills needed for economic growth and to build South Africa’s skills base; to enable regional development by working with Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries to establish efficient, secure and managed movements of people; and to reduce fraud and the cost of doing business thus attracting more investment.

With regards to the Medium Term Strategic Framework 2014-2019, DHA focussed on three key areas which were: keeping South Africa’s borders effectively defended, protected, secured, and well-managed; keeping the identity of all persons in South Africa secured; and improving and streamlining regulations to reduce the burden of importing core and critical skills needed for the country.

For the period of January – March 2015, DHA faced various major challenges including unreliable networks and power supply; the replacement of green ID books; managers lacking the required skills; an aging fleet of mobile units; and access to farms in order to register the births of all citizens.

The Department fully achieved 33 targets out of 43 (71 percent). Ten out of 43 targets were not achieved. The Department felt that good progress was made in achieving the targets.

Mr Gordon Hollamby, Chief Financial Officer (CFO), DHA, took the Committee through the Department’s financial performance, looking at the budget versus actual spending as of 31 March 2015. Overall DHA spent 100 percent of its budget, which was R7 223 702. The budget was spent on four programmes: administration, citizen affairs, immigration affairs, and provinces. Elaboration of both budget and expenditure per economic classification and per sub programme was made.

The revenue collected as of quarter four was R762 656. Included in this figure was an amount of R89 605 relating to foreign revenue.

Mr Apleni briefed the Committee on priorities going forward. These priorities included effective management of immigration; comprehensive and secure national identity system (NIS) modernisation of DHA; improvement of service delivery; development of ethical, patriotic and professional officials; and the fight against corruption. The persisting challenges could however be unreliability of networks, lack of full-time IT specialists, and historically low funding of DHA.

Discussion
The Chairperson was concerned about the inspectorate and the ethical values of the Department. The issue of foreign revenue was not well unpacked. He sought clarity on the progress of reopening the Port Elizabeth refugee reception centre and Ms S Nkomo (IFP)’s concern about the issue of marriages of convenience, which were utilised to gain permanent resident permits.

Mr Apleni responded that DHA’s inspectorate would be able to meet its objectives only if it was ethical and professional. To achieve this, DHA had adopted a zero tolerance approach in order to instil in its staff the same fear such as that of fearing God. He would not hesitate to empty the Department and employ other staff if they were not adhering to the ethical principles.

The matter of the Port Elizabeth refugee reception centre was before the Constitutional Court for a judicial review. And a letter was sent to the Chief Justice explaining DHA’s position on the matter. However, he would revert to the Committee once the matter was judicially reviewed.

Referring to marriage of convenience, Mr Apleni stated that the position of DHA was clear. If a person was caught, he would be arrested and tried in a court of law, and if he or she was found guilty, the term of imprisonment was 15 years.

Mr M Hoosen (DA) sought clarity on issues related to integrity, ethics and professionalism as they pertained to the communication between officials and clients. Clients battled to get answers from managers at all levels of management. DHA’s services were poor hence clients were kept in the queue for the whole day without being serviced. Although clients might understand DHA’s constraints, communication was lacking in various respects.

He requested further information on DHA’s new dimensional approach towards visas. He knew of a father who was denied a visa to come to South Africa to meet his children. Issues such as this were illustrative that DHA was not living up to its values and principles.

He questioned why the Cuba-South African agreement identified Cuba as a preferred procurement partner. Why was DHA not looking at how goods and services could be procured locally? If DHA gave a contract to a local company, this would create jobs and would be in line with protection of the wellbeing of citizens.

Mr Apleni responded that the matter was first discussed with the National Treasurer and the focus was on a company that could provide a best service.

Mr Hoosen asked whether all cases of fraud and corruption that were reported were investigated and why did DHA claim that the onus of proof rested on the victim? Prior to the release of a Lawyers for Human Rights report, why was it difficult for DHA to pick up that officials were corrupt? What challenged DHA in its efforts to fight fraud and corruption?

Mr Apleni responded that corruption was first offered before a foreigner reached a port of entry. For example, a foreigner would bribe a driver to sneak him into the country. They would bribe an official at the port of entry and a foreigner would continue to resort to that mechanism even if he or she was inside a country.  90% of corruption took place whilst in the queues at DHA offices. DHA was too corrupt and this problem could be alleviated by the zero tolerance approach, coupled with automating the interviewing systems. Most interpreter facilitated corruption. Noting with satisfaction that in conferences there were no interpreters, he stated that the same system that was applied in conferences should apply at DHA offices where interviews took place. 

DHA welcomed the report from Lawyers for Human Rights and was considering its recommendations provided therewith to improve services. For example, the Minister of Home Affairs was in Geneva to meet the top officials of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to discuss the manner in which the UNHCR could assist in improving asylum services. He remarked that it was strange to find an asylum-seeker in Port Elizabeth who accessed South Africa through Beit Bridge border and who did not report to Misina refugee reception centre. DHA was trying to resolve issues such as this.

Mr Hoosen sought clarity on why the unreliable power supply and network did not affect the issuance of passports but did affect the Smart ID? Was DHA using two different systems to issue these documents?

Mr Apleni responded that when network was down, it was difficult to issue a smart ID because information was checked and captured electronically and the demand was so high compared to the passports.

Mr Hoosen asked why it was taking DHA 90 days to issue the refugee IDs whereas South African ones were issued within 30 days. What was the target for importing core and critical skills?

Mr Apleni responded that the refugee ID required a long process because it was captured by different departments and it was issued by the civic section. Certain information was not on the system and needed to be captured whereas with the South African ones information was available and was dealt with by the civic section.

Mr Hoosen asked how long it would take DHA to sort out the issue of applications concerning permanent resident permits. People who had applied for them had been waiting for three years or more. Although DHA had various means of giving a feedback to its clients, applicants had received no answer from officials.

Mr Apleni responded that South Africa was in need of people who were valuable to it. Issuance of permanent resident permits was a target which DHA could not achieve simply because no target should be set in the first place. The matter was very sensitive and needed more investigation on how DHA should go about it. In the mean time, DHA targeted people with critical skills and business people.

DHA was sitting with 11 000 applications for permanent resident permits and only 3 000 were approved. As from June 2014, DHA implemented VFS, a new mechanism which was used in issuing visas. It was helpful to speed up applications. It was however challenging to deal with applications that were submitted before June 2014.

Mr Hoosen said that the matters of concern could not effectively be dealt with if DHA was underfunded. However, the issue of underfunding could not be used to support DHA’s failure to achieve its planned targets.

He asked whether the problem of children trafficking was supported with documentary evidence. If it was, how many children were trafficked into South Africa? Was the number justifying the adoption of more stringent immigration rules?

The Chairperson said that the issue of human trafficking was not relating to the matters raised in the quarter four performance report and asked Members to engage with the report at hand.

Mr Apleni explained that these so called “new strict immigration measures” were initiated in 2009. They went through the normal process of turning them into law. They were initiated as a Bill, thus adopted and assented into law by President in 2011. Members should learn to distinguish between a legislation and its regulations. The immigration laws were changed and DHA had been busy working on regulations of the principal legislation, which supported it.

The requirement of an unabridged certificate was not motivated by child trafficking at the time. Rather, the Department of Social Development (DSD) adopted the Children’s Act in 2005. Under Section 18, it stated that for a child to get a passport, consent of both parents was required, including for his or her removal or departure from the Republic. The amendment to the Immigration Act, 2002 complied with said provisions. The issue of consent was dealt with by the Constitutional Court in the case of Fraser V Naude and Another. The unabridged certificate guarded against human trafficking. The figure of the number of children trafficked were featured in DHA’s brief to the Committee but it was not the only reason of requesting the birth certificate of a child. Members should note that one child trafficked was one child too many.

Ms O Maxon (EFF) seconded all issues raised by Mr Hoosen. She was also concerned with the difficulty of getting hold of managers, including the Director-General telephonically.

Mr Apleni responded that top officials did respond to queries and regarded the question as very interesting one. He was responsible for all of the South African population and everyone needed to hear from him on certain matters. For that reason, he received more than 3 000 calls per day. As he was in meetings most of the time an automatic answer requested callers to leave a message. These calls were all responded to although very few people did leave a message.

To ensure a flow of communication, DHA was initiating a contact centre which would operate differently from a call centre. A contact centre would improve on telephonic correspondence.

Ms Maxon said she had been assisting a lady who was married to a foreigner according the DHA records, but who had never married. This had prevented her from marrying her suitor.

She requested that the new mechanism of capturing biometrics be unpacked in more detail for Members to get a deeper understanding. She felt the mechanism would discourage tourists from visiting South Africa. Why was DHA moving on to allowing skilled people into South Africa?

DHA was not putting more effort into solving the problem of long queues. It was concerning that DHA was experiencing difficulty in accessing farmworkers, which would result in the deprivation of their right to vote. In addition, they would not have access to public services if they were not issued with identification documents.

Ms Maxon said that she wanted to change her name from Maxon to Hlope, because she was no longer Ms Maxon and there was no need to carry the surname of her former husband. However, she had encountered various barriers including the question of the procedure to follow as two senior officials had advised her on two different procedures.

The Department had not met the target for ministerial Izimbizo activities. Imbizos were an important platform on which officials engaged with communities and people at the grassroots were be able to seek clarity or raise matters that affected them most.

The Chairperson responded that the website of DHA was full of information and Ms Maxon could find her answer there.

Ms Nkomo seconded Ms Maxon. A new method was needed by which Members could apply to communicate with DHA management. DHA’s efforts to train managers were appreciated. With trained managers, DHA could achieve its targets. However, implementation of new policy was of concern. She was of the view that new immigration rules might aggravate DHA’s historical non-achievement records.

The submission did not clearly indicate what Members could do to assist DHA to meet its targets. Mr Apleni should clearly have stated that DHA was in need of more funds and that he wanted the Committee’s support. The budget template provided by the CFO provided all the necessary information but the CEO had not managed to save some cents.

Mr Apleni responded that he anticipated the support of the Committee when he elaborated on challenges and a way forward.

On the issue of priorities, Ms Nkomo supported Mr Apleni’s approach.

The Chairperson responded that savings in the budget would imply that services were not delivered or were delivered but were not of quality.

Ms T Kanye (ANC) sought clarity on challenges behind non-achievement of targets, what strategies were in place to ensure that people in rural areas and farms were accessed, how the issue of false IDs could be alleviated including speeding up of issuance of smart ID, on collaboration with Telkom and banks, and whether there was joint operations with other departments?

Mr D Gumede (ANC) appreciated DHA’s progress in dealing with fraud and corruption. He reminded Mr Apleni that the zero tolerance approach should be maintained at all times. To Gumede, performance was on track but not enough. Outdate computers impacted on performance and the issue should be resolved urgently. He sought clarity on whether the border management was well funded and operational. To do better, DHA management should focus on training its staff and on ensuring their ethics and professionalism.

Mr Gumene warned that Mr Apleni should not use comparison with other departments to argue that DHA was understaffed. Rather, his argument should be based on scientific research or study. Needs of the departments varied from one another. Existing protocol should be observed for communication with DHA management.

Ms D Raphuti (ANC) applauded DHA’s values but was concerned with the fact that they were not adhered to. She supported the capturing of biometrics, noting that she had met families from China who came with their children, who did not view the new immigration rules as obstacles. South Africa should learn from how Cuba dealt with certain home affairs matters. She seconded Ms Maxon on the question of Izimbizo and remarked that this was a platform where DHA should test whether it was doing the right thing. Finally, she seconded Mr Gumede on the question of corruption and stated that DHA ought to be firm and tolerate no one.

The Chairperson remarked that people should refrain from calling Ministers, Deputy Ministers, Director-Generals or other top officials and rather call their assistants or communication liaison officers. He said that 80% of their time was allocated to attending meetings and thus they were unavailable in their offices. However, where certain matters were communicated in writing, a letter of acknowledgment was imperative.

Mr Hoosen remarked that, taking into account the problem of corruption, the issue of the inspectorate was of concern.

On the issue of foreign revenue, Mr Apleni responded that he wrote to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) and the National Treasury. They had agreed on certain things which DHA had done.

The Chairperson thanked Mr Apleni and his accompanying team for their time.

Meeting was adjourned.