Status and collaboration at harbours and participation in protecting the ocean economy: Department of Home Affairs briefing

Meeting report

The Committee in the absence of the Chairperson elected Mr D Gumede (ANC) as Acting Chairperson.

Department of Home Affairs (DHA) on the status and collaboration at Maritime Ports of Entry (POEs) and participation in protecting the ocean economy (Operation Phakisa)
The delegation comprised of Mr Elroy Africa Border Management Authority (BMA) Project Manager DHA; Ms Frances Craigie Chief Director: Enforcement Department of Environmental Affairs; Mr Riaz Moosa Deputy Director: Parliamentary Liaison DHA; Ms Rika Anker Acting Chief Director: Port Control DHA; and Mr Samuel Maduwana, the Parliamentary Liaison Officer for DHA.

Mr Africa undertook the briefing duly assisted by Ms Anker. The Committee was provided with a brief background. SA was bordered by the ocean on three sides with a coastline of approximately 3924km. Members were also provided with insight into SA’s marine jurisdiction in terms of international law. For example, SA had jurisdiction on its internal waters which included harbours.

Operation Phakisa (Unlocking the Ocean Economy)
In early 2013 Cabinet gave the approval for the development of an integrated approach for ocean governance. Six laboratories (Labs) were established with the aim of integrating governance structures in the South African marine/ocean environment. The Marine Protection Services and Governance Lab was relevant to the current briefing. It focused on the need to improve monitoring, control and surveillance, the identification and protection of sensitive and unique marine habitat and species as well as the coordination of required resources for compliance, enforcement and policing of the oceans and coast.  The Programme had ten initiatives. The initiative highlighted and relevant to the briefing was the Enhanced and Coordinated Compliance and enforcement Programme. The Programme created the platform to provide opportunities for an integrated and coordinated approach in addressing illegal activities within the ocean environment by creating systems, processes and practices that allowed for detection of infringements (as well as prevention capabilities) followed by a coordinated and integrated response to deal with them. Operation Phakisa created a platform for all stakeholders in the maritime and marine space to address issues with different departments. The Department of Home Affairs was represented from inception to cross syndicate all issues surrounding human movement within the context of Maritime Governance of which Immigrations Services were central. The enforcement initiative would optimise enforcement assets from all relevant departments, agencies and provinces whilst leveraging on the Security Cluster Programme for the necessary Security Assessments. Operation Phakisa had started a pilot project which ran from the Namibian Border to Port Elizabeth and covered 200 nautical miles. The project started 1 July 2015 and ended 30 December 2015.
On the status of maritime ports of entry, the Department had a presence at all eight maritime ports of entry i.e. Cape Town, Durban, Richards Bay, East London, Port Elizabeth, Port of Ngqura, Mossel Bay and Saldanha Bay. Only Cape Town and Durban had dedicated staff the rest of the ports were support by staff from provinces as needed. The DHA’s contribution and support of initiatives in Operation Phakisa included work on crew transfers and changes, extension of operational hours at Mossel Bay and stakeholder engagements with the industry.

The Committee was given insight into the relationship between the Border Management Authority (BMA) and Operation Phakisa. The BMA might not be in existence as yet but a relationship was established. The mandate of Operation Phakisa was on ocean governance to unleash the socio-economic potential of the oceans whilst the mandate of the BMA was on border law enforcement.  The modus operandi of Operation Phakisa was to have a coordinated approach whereas the BMA followed an integrated approach. The BMA was a national public entity which would take over the functions that some of the departments had. Operation Phakisa was not an organ of state but rather an integrated and coordinated governance initiative. The briefing continued by highlighting BMA and Operation Phakisa collaboration areas that were currently under discussion. One of the areas discussed was the establishment of coast guard which SA lacked. The navy was carrying out coast guard duties. Another area under discussion was to have an Integrated Border Management Strategy (IBMS). The Strategy was being finalised to address challenges and to roll out priorities in the maritime domain to enhance border control to inter alia combat illegal activities.

In conclusion the DHA undertook to continue to seek opportunities to support Operation Phakisa through ongoing collaboration with the Department of Environmental Affairs, which was the lead department. Similarly, the BMA initiative would pursue current discussions and undertake further interactions with Operation Phakisa to ensure the realisation of common objectives.

Discussion
Mr M Hoosen (DA) on page 15 asked the Department to explain the issue of current capacity.  A distinction needed to be drawn between provincial staff that was used and dedicated staff of the DHA. He was concerned that over half of the ports did not have dedicated staff. He referred to page 16 and asked why crew transfers did not take place at harbours. Why were crew transfers done at the airport? He appreciated the briefing as it spoke volumes about the differences between coordination versus integration. A research document compiled by Committee Staff spoke about the weaknesses that agencies like the South African Police Services (SAPS) had. For instance, at the port in Durban a total of 15m containers landed but only 13 000 could be inspected. It also spoke about high levels of corruption but yet only two SAPS members had been arrested. Now that Members knew what the weaknesses of agencies were the DHA was asked what its plan was to deal with the weaknesses. The BMA was bringing together all the weaknesses of agencies. He noted that National Treasury had said that there was no costing for the BMA. Was that to say the BMA would be able to address concerns without resources or funding?

Mr Africa noted that when the BMA Bill was presented to the Committee the DHA had been explicit about what the challenges were. He conceded that on maritime the area to be patrolled was huge. The South African government simply did not have the resources and technology to patrol the jurisdiction 24 hours a day. He explained that there was a BMS system but that it was transponder based. It only worked if the vessel’s transponder was switched on. For the last 20 years SA had tried a coordinated approach. Many coordinating committees had been established. All these types of structures tried to coordinate structures on border management. The problem however was fragmented border management. There were just fewer than 9000 officials involved in border management duties from various departments. It was evident that a coordinated approach did not work. The problem was that there was staff from various departments with differences in salaries, terms of employment etc. Different entities furthermore had differing access to tools of the trade such as laptops and cell phones. Another problem was that every entity, for example like the South African Revenue Service (SARS) and the DHA, implemented their own legislation. The issue was about how to align the legislative environment. The bottom line was that there were problems of coordination and fragmentation. The DHA therefore undertook to change the approach. It was hoped that the BMA would make a huge difference under the new approach of integration. It was about law enforcement that worked. For the past 20 years border management had failed. There would be one border card under one control and command. He conceded that a staff complement of 9000 was inadequate. For example, Australia, which did not even have land borders, had a border force of 15 000, Canada too had a large border force. The BMA would implement legislation from many government departments. It was nothing new as SAPS was already doing it. The BMA focused on border law enforcement and on ports of entry. An integrated agency was needed. 

Ms O Hlope (EFF) also raised concerns about why there was no dedicated staff at ports. Only two of the ports i.e. Cape Town and Durban had dedicated staff. It was clear that there were challenges and she asked whether results from Operation Phakisa were as was expected. She asked whether inroads were made after people had been work-shopped.

Ms Anker, on capacity at ports, noted that the DHA in the context of things had 1500 immigration officials which covered land, sea and air. There was dedicated staff under the DHA. She noted that there was a management structure in place at the ports in Cape Town and Durban. At the other ports there may not be dedicated staff but the ports were manned by immigration trained officials. There were capacity constraints and the nearest provincial office provided staff when needed. She conceded that volumes through these ports were low and hence no dedicated staff was deployed. Another constraint at these ports was infrastructure. There was no dedicated infrastructure. The DHA had in its Annual Performance Plan requested infrastructure.

Ms M Mnisi (ANC) on slide 8, asked how the DHA made a distinction between the coordinated approach of Operation Phakisa and the integrated approach of the BMA. She asked for clarity on the processes involved on transfers and on crew changes.

Mr Africa, on comparing Operation Phakisa and the BMA, explained that the mandate of Operation Phakisa was much broader. The BMA only dealt with border law enforcement. Lessons could be learnt on border management through the BMA.

Ms Anker, on crew processes, explained that there were two elements. The first was where a person within the harbour joined a ship. The second was where crew members joined the crew on rigs. The first scenario had minimal immigration issues. What the DHA addressed was delays in crew changes. The issue was about the person flying in and also the person whom he was replacing leaving. On the issue of oil rigs, the Department tried to minimise the impact. The process was directly taken care of at the airport. The person was cleared to join the rig. If the vessel was in the harbour then they joined the vessel at the harbour. Biometrics was done at four airports i.e. OR Tambo International Airport, Cape Town International Airport, King Shaka International Airport and at Lanseria Airport. Information was related between the airport and the harbour. There was no need for transit visas for crew. The crew manifesto spoke to details of crew. There were also exemptions for researchers on research vessels.

Ms D Raphuti (ANC) noted that when the Border Management Bill had been presented to the Committee questions had been asked about what the staff complement would be. The figure given was 9000 which she felt was inadequate. She also raised concern that there was no dedicated staff at all ports. The task that lay ahead was huge and staff was needed.

Mr Hoosen asked if Operation Phakisa was getting good results due to good coordination taking place then why was the integrated approach followed on the BMA.

The Acting Chairperson asked what informed the decision not to place dedicated staff at the majority of ports. Was it due to a lack of work at those ports? It seemed that Durban and Cape Town had dedicated staff because they were busy ports. The briefing did not speak about efforts on human resource development. There was a definite need for skills and training of officials like SAPS members. He asked whether covert operations would be dealt with by state security services or would it be dealt with by the DHA itself. He was concerned that staff at sea could be tempted to bring in illicit goods if bribed to do so.  On finances and human resource capacity, the Committee needed to know where the money was going to come from. How was risks going to be mitigated? He also asked about the process on crew changes. The Department was asked whether there would be early warning systems in place on illicit trafficking of goods. With whom was the Border Management Centre being discussed? Was existing capacity being utilised?  He further asked whether there was a dedicated team for risk analysis at different ports of entry. One needed to know what you were looking for. There were many government departments that did marine patrols. There was not one command and control. Some of these patrols were done by SAPS members and South African National Defence Force (SANDF) members. Sometimes rivalries emerged which caused inefficiencies. How was duplication prevented? He also asked how slacking off by some individuals was prevented when such individuals believed others would do things which they should have done. To solve these issues, the DHA was asked whether it would hold meetings where coordination was on the agenda. The Department was asked whether the BMA would be able to handle maritime security that covered 3900 km; and asked if equipment needed for the task had been acquired.

Mr Africa, on covert operations, said the BMA would work closely with SA’s intelligence agencies. A National Targeting Centre was being established. The State Security Agency was working with the DHA. The National Targeting Centre would have an early warning system which would operate at national level. It would look at risks and threats and would tell BMA officials what to do. Early warning was the primary role of the National Targeting Centre. The National Targeting Centre would look at the entire border environment, which included maritime borders. 

Ms Anker, on early warning systems, said there was an Advanced Passenger Processing System for air flight. The DHA was working for the rollout of the System in the maritime environment. The idea was to have rollout first for passenger vessels.

Ms Craigie stated that Operation Phakisa dealt with a range of issues. She was in charge of the Enhanced and Coordinated Compliance and Enforcement Programme. There were some things that had been learnt, one of which was that coordination took a great deal of effort. A great deal of leveraging off other departments took place. Critical issues of the Enhanced and Coordinated Compliance and Enforcement Programme was NATJOINTS. It helped that Operation Phakisa was a presidential project, it made government departments more willing to participate. A new instruction on Operation Phakisa had been received and it was valid until March 2017. The navy needed a directive from the South African National Defence Force (SANDF). A plus point was that different officials had joint planning and training sessions. She conceded that reporting could be quite complicated. Many lessons had been learnt from the pilot phase of Operation Phakisa. It provided the basis for the operational phase. Officials worked together and in so doing learnt from each other. Departments brought their own budgets along as Operation Phakisa had a very limited budget. The issue was now about implementation and it was her task to check that delivery took place.

The Acting Chairperson asked whether lessons learnt from joint operations during the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup had been tapped into.

 The meeting was adjourned.