Visas and Permits Task Team progress; Government Printing Works progress; with Deputy Minister

Meeting report

Visas and Permits Task Team progress report
Forensic investigator Peter Bishop, who is part of the Multi-Disciplinary Task Team (MDTT) established to review all permits issued since 2004, explained that the MDTT was fully operational and had been functional since March 2023. Their mandate included investigations, data analytics, including an analysis on the issuance of visas and permits, as well as identify criminal syndicates for fraud, theft, corruption and maladministration; improving the co-ordination of anti-corruption initiatives between DHA and law enforcement agencies as well as the provision of expert opinion; and including attending court cases, departmental disciplinary hearings and dispute proceedings, and testifying as expert witnesses. Some of the focus areas for MDTT included business permits that according to the Lubisi Report had been skewed with 1 137 of them being processed through the wrong system. Some officials had been found to have misconducted themselves. So far they had one matter that was still being investigated, two matters where officials had been issued with suspension letters and two others were going to face criminal prosecution.

Mr Modiri Matthews, DHA Acting Deputy Director General: Immigration, said that the MDTT had prioritised for immediate action among others the Bushiri matter. Support was currently being rendered by the MDTT to DPCI for an ongoing criminal investigation and to the DHA on four disciplinary matters currently ongoing. These disciplinary cases had been delayed for two years but are now being unblocked.

An analysis of the level of salary profiles of the officials that had been identified for disciplinary referrals showed they emanated from level 1 to 12 and 59 officials had been identified.

On progress since the Committee's visit to the Head Office Permitting Unit, DHA had commenced with the review of the delegations for visa and permit applications. It is currently under consideration with DHA and legal counsel. The adjudicators had also strengthened their verification process by engaging with relevant stakeholders such as banks, institutions of higher learning and SAQA. There had also been a recommendation that public private partnership tender for the appointment of a new Visa Facilitation Service provider should be completed. DHA had appointed the Transactional Advisor, the contract accepting the appointment was signed. Parallel to the PPP the Department has embarked on an open tender process. Submission to appoint the relevant committees were approved due to the length of time it would take.

Discussion
Ms M. Molekwa (ANC) appreciated the report and progress presented thus far. Sheappreciated that there were at least cases that are being handed over to the law enforcement agencies. She hoped that very soon the investigations would be concluded and the perpetrators would be sentenced.

Noting that the report was still a draft, she would wait for the final report as there were still cases that were under investigation. She appreciated the progress in the Bushiri case and hoped that it would be dealt with quite soon so that the Committee could get closure.

Mr A Roos (DA) said that it was important to appreciate that the Lubisi Report is about rampant corruption in the issuance of immigration permits at Home affairs which also has a significant economic impact. One of the top priorities of Home Affairs in the Medium Strategic Framework was the visa regime that supports economic transformation and job creation and it goes on to talk about how a revised visa regime will grow the economy by attracting global business and promoting tourism. This had two elements. The first is the corruption element, where he saw that changes were being made. One would expect that given the threat to national security anyone that has been a party to issuing visas or facilitating this, has created a threat to the country’s national security. Some people for such actions undergo disciplinary action which could take quite a long time and during that time these officials receive their salaries and perks. Some of the employees do not even get to be prosecuted. There was a director of appeals and the chief director of permits who were dismissed as a result of a disciplinary action but it does not appear that criminal charges were being pursued. He asked how could it be that the fraudulent visas were processed without approval of the chief director of permits or directors of appeals and why some are only facing disciplinary action and not criminal prosecution.

From the draft report a number of persons were implicated for further investigation. He wanted to know how many of these persons were still working at DHA and how many of them were on suspension. He felt that this had a significant impact on current operations. The longer the investigations take, it leaves a gap where DHA cannot process visas properly and therefore it has a knock-on effect affecting the economy negatively.

Mr Roos said that he understood that those fraudulent visas were going to be rescinded but he wondered how people or the general public know that they have been rescinded. The Democratic Alliance had previously proposed that a system be employed where people can validate a visa or just determine that it is valid to allow persons to work. If the visas are withdrawn do the people that held them carry on floating around the country without people knowing that they had been withdrawn.

In terms of the deadline, he asked for the deadlines for the task team focus areas in the investigation, because the longer it went on, the longer they have an incapacitated permitting division that has an effect on legitimate applicants for permits. He also asked when was it envisaged that the outdated immigration legacy system will be upgraded to the Biometric Movement Control System (BCMS) to prevent future fraud.

Mr Roos said that they had received figures of between a 40 000 to 50 000 backlog in visas. These were applications from billionaires, directors of multinational corporations and others have had their applications pending in the backlog since 2016 and in many cases are even threatening legal action against Home Affairs which will cost money to litigate and pay out. Looking at the Lubisi Report, it mentions a figure of about 45 000 fraudulent visas issued between 2014 and 2021. This indicates that it was not a matter of lack of staff rather that if DHA did not issue the fraudulent visas then it would have processed the legitimate visa applications. Clearly officials have been spending their time issuing fraudulent visas instead of the legitimate visas. On 1 March, 18 adjudicators received a month’s training. He had not seen any improvement in the adjudication of visas. The last two months have been a nightmare where DHA felt that if the Committee is not in session at Parliament, it can ignore the visa queries that come through the Committee. He asked how effective the 18 additional adjudicators been and what was the status of the backlog. What happened to the staff that the Minister had indicated did not have the legal qualifications to process the applications? Were they placed elsewhere? Were they demoted? What was the timeline for the review of the delegation of adjudication of permits to improve the turnaround times.

Mr K Pillay (ANC) joined the rest of the committee in expressing disappointment about the study tour that did not happen and also appreciate the interventions that had been taken to overcome it. He welcomed the proposed oversight visit to VFS. He asked what was the overall percentage of the report that has been implemented to date. Are there employees who are currently under investigation or have been investigated that may still be in DHA employment? He asked the time frame for the completion of all of the report recommendations.

Mr B Bongo (ANC) shared the views of his fellow committee members. He genuinely appreciated the report and the progress of the team but what remained an elephant in the room was the fact that permit and visa applications were not moving. Over the past three months there has been nothing happening. Big corporates were looking for visas and permits and nothing was moving. The President had said that there is a spinoff of the issue around Home affairs and mainly it was about the economic boost that must come into the country. Therefore while they appreciated the report, there was nothing happening. The same issue had been raised when the committee visited DHA but after the visit nothing seems to have moved. There were queries that were as old as three to five years and if that was the case he wondered about the recent ones were being dealt with. He asked what the state of the backlog was. They needed to move with the speed of a mirage in terms of dealing with the issues because there clearly was a problem.

Mr Bongo said the Committee appreciated that the team and DHA were trying to deal with the corruption but what was being done tangibly to deal with the backlog because it is a huge one. Was it a policy directive? Was there a need to change legislation? Was it just a lack of staff or that the staff do not want to work?

He understood DHA to be saying that people were undergoing disciplinary hearings or they are being charged. They seemed to be referring to very junior officials and not talking about higher ranking officials. He wondered if these officials were targeted because a junior official had no authority to issue big instructions. As far as the Committee was aware big instructions involved higher ranking officials like a chief director. However, that value chain is not evident as one looks at suspensions and those that have been charged. There might be a need to go back to VFS. There was a Mr Simons whom he was informed was no longer there and they do not know how that affects the value chain.

On the Bushiri case, Adv Bongo said he did not get what was happening with the arbitration. The report was silent on the progress of the arbitration of the Bushiri matter. There may be need to get deeper into what was happening so that the Committee understands how it affects value chain.

Ms M Modise (ANC) said that there was a lot of wrongdoing in DHA that was not being detected. There was a recent case publicised on television where a drug dealer was being pursued but when they discovered him it was found that he was married to a female official at Home Affairs and she was the person to issue passport and visas. There was still a lot of work that needed to be done about the many weaknesses in the system. DHA needed to tighten up and improve the system so that it was not easily manipulated

It raised a lot of concern that a number of people charged are lower ranking officials. It is not enough that it is just them being discovered. Clearly someone higher ranking signs off on the work at DHA and they know these offices and what was happening. There was need to ensure processes are done in a proper way. She urged DHA to look deeper and put in more effort in finding the higher ranking officials. However, the Committee appreciated and welcomed the progress made this far.

Deputy Minister & Department response
Mr Njabulo Nzuza, Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, indicated that Mr Matthews was currently acting in the position that was previously occupied temporarily by Mr Yusuf Simons whose main function is as Western Cape Provincial Manager. He had to go back there but also for family reasons. DHA had started the recruitment process and should be able to update the Committee on where they are in that process. This was a process that includes not only the Minister and Deputy Minister but also ministers from other government departments in terms of the public service regulations.

On investment related visas, DHA had a standing committee with the Department of Trade, Industry And Competition (DTIC) where they are able to share on a weekly basis priority visas that need their attention with regards to big corporates. If Members have the names of such corporations with pending applications they could share it with DHA so that they can be shared with DTIC. Some of the delays are not necessarily on their side but at times they are awaiting a report from Labour or DTIC.

There are a number of cases that were underway not only for junior staff members. There was action that had been taken against two DDGs in particular that were demoted to the level of director following acts of maladministration and similarly another DDG was also taken through a disciplinary process in the immigration space. Chief directors have also gone through the disciplinary process and unfortunately one of them passed away. There were two other directors related to appeals and IT security. Therefore it was not just the junior staff members that were subject to a disciplinary hearing. DHA does not only deal with officials internally. In the presentation, Mr Bishop had indicated that there are matters being referred to law enforcement agencies. DHA now had a dedicated team at DPCI that is looking at these matters so that they are attended to in a short period of time. Sometimes the delays are caused by the implicated officials who will litigate continuously and that is where the issue normally arises.

The Deputy Minister said that if one were to look at the service provider for the UK TLS visa application based in South Africa, they have more than 600 officials that are processing visas while DHA has only 18 persons at the e-visa hub. The current capacity stands at 42% and they have submitted another business case to National Treasury about permitting so that they are able to respond timeously to the visa applications. Capacity remains an issue not only at Home Affairs but the Justice, Crime Prevention and Security (JCPS) cluster had huge capacity challenges. The MDTT team had been tasked with rescinding some of the visas. It comprised of a multidisciplinary team and of course they have to follow the purge process in terms of administration action as and when they give visas to those who are not deserving. That process was currently being undertaken and they have started rolling out the MNCs and of course prioritising some of their busiest ports of entry.

For the North West official mentioned by Ms Modise, he asked the Committee to note that this was not the first transgression with the law. She was currently facing departmental hearing and she is also currently facing a criminal charges related to other activities she had been doing. That was a matter they are following quite closely and at the appropriate time they will come back to it.

On backlogs, Mr Matthews said that they are finalising a project finishing the analysis of what constitutes the backlog for different types of visas – some of which are simpler to adjudicate – and degree of risk of the visa types. They are about to do a presentation to EXCO to their implement the backlog clearance exercise they have a variety solutions. They are looking at a clearance exercise that should have them utilising existing staff, adding additional capacity using external providers. The idea is that the backlog clearance exercise should have options and also timeframes in terms of what would be required in terms of three month period to clear so six months to one year. That was something they were about to finalise and will be presenting within the next week to DHA EXCO.

The 18 staff members recruited earlier in the year who are legally qualified are being utilised in the e-visa hub. There was an e-visa hub at their BV hub building where they are adjudicating on a daily basis e-visa applications. They have also expanded the number of countries and they are continually improving on security via the adjudication process which they are looking at tactically. On the delegations, they have drafted the delegations of applications and they are awaiting on the final draft of the delegations so they should be receiving a decision that.

The Chairperson said that the Committee’s main concern was the backlog in which there was no demonstration of resolving that, noting DHA’s response analysis. In the interim what measures were being put in place to ensure that the backlog was dealt with? In Committee meetings last year, there was an intention from DHA to resolve the backlog hence the Committee conducted oversight at Home Affairs.

Mr Matthews explained that when talking about interim interventions that also constituted an option where DHA would use the existing staff to look at the types of visas and deal with a certain amount which they are able to do. Some of the visa renewals are quite straightforward therefore some visas they are able to do with the existing staff and capacity. However, the categories of permanent, resident and critical skills visas are a bit more in-depth in terms of verifications which may constitute part of the broader or in depth clearance exercise. The straightforward ones are the immediate ones that DHA is dealing with. The critical ones like the investor ones they are prioritising as well as trying to clear the backlog that are from older than a year.

They had noted the issues that Members had raised about the backlog but just to indicate that DHA had not deviated from the same plan that Mr Simmons shared with the Committee. In that presentation he had explained the majority of what constitutes the backlog and they are now working tirelessly to ensure that they deal with that backlog. The disciplinary hearing for the North West official had started the day before and was ongoing.

Ms T Molefe, DHA Acting DDG: Human Resources, said that they have now registered 24 officials with disciplinary issues. The majority of cases are almost concluded with some of them being suspended. The ones that are still outstanding will be at early stages or just the ones that have been charged or suspended.

In terms of capacity within labour relations She said that they had gained confidence not just in terms of the way in which they do business but also in reviewing their own processes and also what the Labour Relations Act prescribes about the time that it should take to analyse cases referred to the DTIC. Working together with the MDTT has also supported them a great deal and pull capacity from the 18 lawyers they have appointed as a department.

At the moment there are only 24 cases that are flowing from the previous financial years 2022 to 2023. There was improved progress in that regard but they are still striving to ensure that with the business cases they have submitted to National Treasury, their numbers within the labour relations unit can be increased so that they do not delay the cases.

Mr Bishop replied about timeframes of the investigations saying this was a yearlong project that the MDTT had presented a detailed plan on. There was a work schedule plan set up for the next twelve months and timeframes that were tracked diligently for each and every investigation. DHA was adopting a staggered approach for short term, medium term and long term priority matters so that there is sufficient time to investigate these matters. All matters where DHA officials had been dismissed have been referred to the MDTTT for investigation about instituting criminal prosecutions going forward. Therefore those cases are currently being looked at. Investigations and disciplinary hearings are parallel processes that run simultaneously. Once investigations are done, that is when these matters are referred for criminal prosecution.

Mr Bishop explained that when investigations are carried out they start from the lower ranking officials because that is where the applications were lodged via VFS and where it was captured and adjudicated. In most cases the adjudicators were the staff that are involved at a lower level. As the investigation progresses they will naturally be the first persons of interest that will be flagged and dealt with. In those investigations as and when it goes up the ranks to higher ranking members, that will be examined and flagged accordingly.

On the Bushiri matter, Mr Matthews confirmed that the official involved had been dismissed and now that matter was at the arbitration stage. It was up to DHA to defend itself at the arbitration. As the MDTT they were supporting the legal team already appointed by DHA in defending that matter at arbitration and that process was outside DHA. It was an independent process since DHA has acted and dismissed the official. It just goes to the arbitration stage to defend the decision and ensure that the decision stands because the official had a right to challenge it. The length of the arbitration and the delay was a fact that was outside the DHA scope and MDTT jurisdiction.

Mr Bishop emphasised that when matters are referred to DPCI for investigation, the work of the MDTT is to support the team that is tasked to ensure they have all the supporting evidence required from DHA to finalise the investigation

The Deputy Minister said that DHA was ready for a Committee oversight visit to VFS. They were running with the PPP process as advised as per the Committee engagement and recommendation. The process was ongoing and the transaction adviser had been appointed. There had been a lot of issues raised about VFS so that was why they decided to run an open tender process parallel to the current contract by VFS.

He explained that their investigation is completely different from the investigations that will be done by media outlets. For the media it was all about expose whereas for the department it was to ensure that they pursue for arrest, prosecution and sentencing the people involved in corruption within DHA thereby rooting out corrupt elements. This was often guided by labour laws and quite substantial processes determined by the Constitution as well that requires people to do things a certain way. He asked the Committee to understand that the process that they embark on does not involve them going to OR Tambo airport and arresting people who are doing wrong. They have shown their commitment over time in terms of sentencing people who have done wrong things by prosecuting such kinds of people or suspending others. The fight against corruption was a serious and ongoing one. As a department they understand well that criminals and syndicates will also plan on how to improve tactics just as they improve their systems The Committee has really helped them in compiling data and showing DHA where they can improve and prevent some of the things from happening in the future. On the backlog, they had noted the concerns raised by the Committee are genuine. The majority of the backlog was sitting with relative visas rather than those having an impact on the economy. What they have was a situation where a company COO was given a visa and comes into the country and makes the investment. Now they want to migrate with the children into the country – that does not affect the level of investment.

DHA will present a spreadsheet in a color coded manner which will display the number of investment visas DHA is at as well as the other visas that will show where the backlog is. He assured the Committee that they are continuing to implement the plan presented by Mr Matthews.

On only junior officials being prosecuted, he asked the Committee to note that the organisational structure of a company and Home Affairs are similar. The majority of the people employed are junior officials and as they go up the chain there are fewer people. This was the reason for the lower number of senior ranking officials being prosecuted.

The reports were emanating from DHA’s efforts to root out corruption in the permitting unit. As a department they understood that they have a responsibility to balance the security interest as well as the economic interest of the country which means that with every visa processed, DHA must ensure that it is a legitimate visa and does not compromise the security of the country and that it also contributes to economic development. Striking that balance was not an easy task but they are getting there. As a department they will deal accordingly with corrupt officials regardless of rank. The Committee need not question their resolve and focus on rooting corruption. It is still a long way to go but progress is being made and DHA is grateful to the Committee for the advice given in the meeting

Government Printing Works (GPW) update
Ms Alinah Fosi, GPW CEO, said that in February 2021 the GPW crashed which resulted in the loss of critical data. The Ministerial Review Panel (MRP) was appointed to investigate the incident. In their investigation, the MRP focused on information and communication technologies (ICT), human resources, finance, operations and production and security functional areas. The report was subsequently finalized by the MRP and presented to the Portfolio Committee on 5 July 2022 and GPW management received the report in September 2022. Immediately management developed actions plans to systematically and adequately respond to the MRP recommendations.

The CEO stated some of the challenges include historical organizational instability which, had had an effect on organizational culture. There was also a lack of handover by GPW senior managers leaving the organization which had an impact on business continuity and lastly the GPW has an inherent challenge in terms of institutional capacity due to structural gaps and vacancies. The approved organizational structure has been implemented since 1 April 2022 to address capacity gaps.

She explained that the implementation of certain recommendations was dependent on other departments or entities, outside GPW such as the Public Service Commission and National Treasury. Although time frames are allocated for investigations this also depended on the complexity of matters being investigated. Actions plans were developed based on the SMART principle.

The project office was established to facilitate the of recommendations. The Government Technical Advisory Centre (GTAC) had been appointed and commenced with technical assistance. Work-streams are established and meet bi-weekly. Work-streams serve as implementation committees or platforms for the MRP recommendations. They also assist in monitoring and evaluation of progress.

So far they had made progress on the investigations included having the forensic investigating team appointed from whom they await the consolidated report. On cases referred to Public Service Commission, a response had been received and they have closed the matter. DPSA provided a team of labour relations specialists to support GPW on labour relations cases. They had managed to complete the implementation of 93 out of the 167 recommendations made MRP.

The CEO said that the total ICT recommendations were 61 of which they have already completed 30. Among the recommendations made was that the institution develop and implement policy on conducting routine maintenance. They had so far developed a maintenance policy that was approved by the accounting officer and the ICT staff trained on ICT management standards. The report had also recommended enforcing reliable backup solutions in accordance with the backup and recovery policy. The backup policy was approved and complete while the backup test and restore schedule has been approved. Backup restoration is carried out as per the approved schedule. She confirmed that backups are working and reliable. 

The report has also recommended the appointment of a technical team comprising of professionals with diverse skills to assist in the implementation. A technical team of experts had already been appointed.

GPW management was committed to executing all recommendations in scope for completion by the end of this financial year, in order to improve GPW operations. The project office would continue to monitor and facilitate the implementation of the MRP recommendations. Experts would continue to be brought in to ensure the recommendations are implemented to the fullest, especially specialists in the areas of human resources, ICT, finance and auditing, including security.

Discussion
Mr Roos said that there seemed to be a total loss of financial and audit data in 2021 yet it is only in 2023 that monthly backups are happening. He asked GPW to explain what back up processes were put in place and what back up processes are currently in place. For all the financial and audit data is there a disaster recovery system in place or is it just tape backups that are manually done via a service provider once a month?

He asked if the reason they had hired a lot of experts on a contractual basis was because they did not have the expertise at GPW? Were these roles going to be ongoing or was it just for a three year stabilisation period and that team will leave? He asked what were the overlaps between the team of experts and the one that already exists in government.

Ms Malekwa asked what was going to happen with the previous lost data. Was it recovered? Were there a mechanism employed for the recovery of that system. She appreciated the findings and progress on the disciplinary process and the unfolding investigation and hope that these processes will be resolved so focus can be made on service delivery.

Mr Pillay appreciated the report on progress. He asked when the report on the forensic investigation into the sabotage was due?

Ms Modise said it was commendable the work that has been done thus far. The progress was satisfying. She wanted to check on what the implications were on the financials. Clearly the process did not come cheap.

The Chairperson said that the report does not demonstrate the outcome processes which were envisaged since the deliberation with the Auditor General. He asked if the fact that the GPW had established a system replaced the work that the DG had done with the initial team to assist the GPW.

GPW response
Ms Fosi replied that part of the teams brought on board were because of the recommendations from the MRP report. They had to approve them to assist in the interim to ensure that they stabilise the organisation while they are appointing their own internal staff. That is why they hastened to review their ICT structure to turnaround the unit to ensure they bring in experts that are supposed to be part of the structure permanently so that they do not depend on service providers. The team that is on site serve to assist towards the stabilisation project that the CFO will talk to. Central to stabilisation was skills transfer. Every service provider must ensure that they have transferred the skills to the officials internally so that they can function internally and some are not necessarily linked to the key items Some are actually a year or two depending on the nature of the expertise required. If its project related, it is just going to be linked to the period of the project and they are released. But they must have transferred the skills internally to move towards stabilisation. There was a joint collaborative effort that they up skill officials.

One consequence management, the CEO said that they had meted out a number of decisions towards the transgressors and they would continue to do so. Both internal labour relations and the DPSA collaborate with legal services to help them get the necessary expertise. They requested HR to report at EXCO on the turnaround time in managing their cases timeously so that they comply with the stipulated timelines in the legislation understanding that some of the investigations will be complex and not all of them will be solved within the 90 days period.

In response to Mr Pillay she said that they are currently awaiting the consolidated report from the forensic investigations and they hope that once tabled if there are still information gaps they will go back and fill them for purposes of completeness. They hope by the end of the year the investigation should be completed so that the recommendation can be carried out but they are going to do everything in their power to ensure that they receive all the necessary support from GPW and then it will be presented to the Minister for consideration.

The GPW engagement with the Auditor General South Africa (AGSA) on the data loss started some time ago especially in 2021 immediately when the crash was experienced. GPW had a meeting together with the minister to present the situation to the Auditor General and just to explain the recommendation and what they require GPW had the meeting with the AGSA, National Treasury, Office of the Accountant General (OAG) just to make sure that all the relevant stakeholders are involved in discussing the challenges and possible solutions.

On the audit team that has been on site, GPW had taken all the recommendation made in the audit report and those have translated into the audit matrix that they are implementing.

On the war room team, she had approached the Home Affairs Director General to request the Chief Information Officer assist them particularly in the establishment of the war room and to use the Home Affairs platform as at the time they were not trusting of the environment. They then continued to have joint forum and that is the team that has meeting and engaging on all ICT matters. Each service provider comes and presents at the war room sessions. As a war room they are able to unlock challenges on the spot and address them and she thanked the Director General for providing the platform because they have achieved a lot through that process to a point where they are going live with the e-Gazette system in the next month.

Mr Ian Van Der Merwe, GPW CFO, said that GPW had brought in a number of experts from the Institute of Chartered Accountants especially to assist GPW with the audit. It had made some progress in the reduction of the audit qualification matters. This was when they latched onto the interaction they have had with National Treasury. They had some disagreements with AGSA on technical matters such as opening and closing balances. They will sit with AGSA on the issue of opening balance until they have a solution so National Treasury and the Accounts Office will be a critical player.

On the financial implications, they are still assessing these at the moment but he will be able to provide a written summary on the financial implications. It mostly relates to the implication of the MRP report as they have a number of interventions such as forensic. They do have quotation that has been approved. He was happy to tabulate and forward this to the Committee after the session.

Mr Zwelibanzi Gwiba, GPW Chief Information Officer, said that once they get the approval for the infrastructure needed they take into account the estimated time of arrival of that infrastructure. Normally it takes about eight to ten weeks – the reason being the effects of COVID-19. The industry itself, the people and manufacturing were impacted, they were expecting to receive the hardware they have acquired and they do have in addition to that steps that they need to take to assemble the hardware and migrate data. They follow certain practices that ensure that they do not lose data again.

They are still utilising the tapes largely. What was happening since February 2021 up until 2023, they were still utilising the tapes to ensure that they are able to have stability and that they are able to restore data whenever there is data loss. This was tested and they were able to restore data to ensure that they do not report another data loss. They have the proven ability to restore data. They do have infrastructure they have provisioned through Home Affairs that is at the national data centre. They have also started using cloud technologies which is highly resilient and available which has in turn reduced some of the workloads and are starting to take some of the systems online. They are following the DPSA cloud directive and the MRP report in terms of implementation of these technologies. They are ensuring that they do know how to back up data and how to restore data including archiving.

They do have evidence of some of the restores they have done. They focused mainly on the financial system and they do have evidence of the restored system to date. They have not restored the full capability of their systems They only identified the critical systems and they are working on restoring functioning critical systems. The reason for that is that they do not have the compute power needed. They cannot take everything to the cloud as they are a national key point that needs to be guided. The only thing they took to the cloud was what they consider transactional info that is for public consumption. In terms of the ICT structure, they do have an approved structure and the vacancies they are filling. They do want to build their own capability as GPW to move forward.

The Chairperson asked if GPW is saying that the Auditor General will not raise any flag as they conduct the audit with respect to the data loss issue in the previous financial years.

The Chief Financial Officer replied that the Auditor General will be able to audit the 2022/23 financial year. They have managed to correct some of the issues that were there. Unfortunately there are two parts so the data loss impact goes back a few financial years which will keep on impacting the opening balances until they get an accounting resolution from National Treasury. The Auditor General technical team also raised an issue on the data loss. They have had a discussion and they are waiting for the conclusion of that but until then the opening balances will be affected. For now they are able to deduce a general ledger that is system generated.

Closing remarks by Deputy Minister
On the audit outcomes, the Deputy Minister explained that the financial reports represent a number of years and previous performance which also plays into facts for the following year. Therefore the data loss was still going to result in problems with the financial reporting going into the future. He was happy with GPW progress thus far but the effects of the data loss will be felt for quite a long time.

Filling of Vacancy of IEC Commissioner
The Chairperson said that there was an advertisement for the vacancy inviting members of the public who are interested to serve as IEC commissioner. That process went through interviews and the Chief Justice has sent the report to Parliament and this had been referred to the Committee. He was tabling it before the Committee and proposed that they allow Members to go through the report and in the next meeting they will take a decision to approve the candidate that must be recommended.

Mr Pillay said he supported the proposal. Mr Roos seconded the proposal.

Meeting adjourned.