Question NW219 to the Minister of Home Affairs
27 March 2024 - NW219
Lekota, Mr M to ask the Minister of Home Affairs
(1) Whether his department has very substantially solved the technical problems and the repeated downtime, especially as a result of the (a) glitches with the State Information Technology Agency mainframe affecting access to the National Population Register, (b) sluggishness of the live capture functionality at the counter leading to delays in processing transactions and (c) obsolescence of equipment contributing to system downtime and hindering efficient service provision; if not, why not, in each case; if so, (i) how exactly and (ii) to what extent are the technical problems being solved; (2) whether he will make a statement on (a)(i) how and (ii) to what extent systems are being modernised and (b) how the rendering of services is therefore being sped up; if not, why not, in each case; if so, what are the relevant details in each case?
Reply:
(1)(a) In January, the Department of Home Affairs experienced a system downtime on the National Population Register (NPR) due to a glitch. SITA submitted an incident report and also took corrective actions to restore services. They are also replacing the infrastructure that contributed to the failure as part of their Modernisation program, which we believe will improve stability. The glitch was caused by a failure on the Telco equipment at the back-end of the system.
(1)(b) The NPR and LC (Live Capture) systems are currently responsive and accessible. However, due to power interruptions and bulk verifications, there may be some accessibility issues. To manage this, the Department is prioritising traffic between the systems and ensuring that bulk verifications are managed within the allotted thresholds.
(1)(c) SITA has started a Modernisation program for all its data center equipment, which hosts critical systems. Additionally, their primary mainframe and storage vendor is actively monitoring the performance of links on a 24/7 basis. SITA has also upgraded its mainframe hardware. Moreover, the Department and SITA are jointly developing an Application Programme Interface (API) to further manage and streamline the data verification process.
(2) The Department's Modernisation program aims to enhance the user experience and provide citizens with better access to Home Affairs-related services. To achieve this goal, critical applications and infrastructure are being upgraded, and access to and from these services is also being improved. Additionally, new channels, such as kiosks, mobile offices, mobile applications, and offices at banks and malls, are being introduced to facilitate ease of access to these services.
END.