We should thank the Joint Budget Committee of parliament for allowing us to respond to the statement of the Minister of Finance, oarticularly as it relates to the issues of the social upliftment of all South Africans through the work of departments represented in this Cluster.

Chairperson, In his Medium Term Budget Policy Statement, presented to Parliament on 26 October 2004, the Minister of Finance identified, on the one hand, growth and development, and on the other, reducing poverty, as the main determinants of budgetary policy over the next three years. Home Affairs is, in particular7 part of the latter and is indeed indispensable in strategies and action to address deep-seated poverty and social exclusion in our society.

Indeed Minister Manuel's utterances are indicative of Government's concerted effort to improve the socio - economic health and welfare of all our people. Against this background, the Department of Home Affairs is central to the realisation of the People's Contract given its centrality to the service delivery of government and in dealing with matters underlying our state- and nationhood such as confirming citizenship from which the right to access to a wide range of government services such as education, health care and other social services such as social grants flows.

The building of a social security net to meet the objective of poverty alleviation is a mammoth task. I agree with the Minister of Finance that our social security system is under severe strain due to both rising income support needs and deficiencies in administering the system.

Of course, the social security system is primarily driven by the department of Social Development. We are working closely with them, both bilaterally as well as through co-operative governance structures in which the Social Sector Cluster is central.

Our Department is the critical enabling role player in establishing the envisaged social security net. As the prime custodian of South African status determination through the upkeep of the National Population Register, we are the base source for establishing social grant eligibility on the grounds of citizenship and the verification of identity. We have partnered with Social Development in extending the child support grant, registering no less than 1, 7 million births in the last financial year. We realise the importance of ensuring that our administrative systems are improved to prevent the abuse of our social grant system but also to provide the necessary mechanisms for better access to those eligible.

For us the responsibilities emanating here from are twofold. Firstly, those eligible for social grants and not in possession of the necessary entitling documents, e.g. birth certificates and identity documents, should be assisted to obtain them expeditiously. This demands quality service delivery. Secondly, the temptations induced from the material benefits associated with the grants system, and have unfortunately led to escalating fraud and corruption, must be managed vociferously. Not only do such practices place undue demands on the fiscus but also impact adversely on the reliabilitv of data entered into the Population register (e.g. Duplicate ID's. This is serious and touches at the heart of South African citizenship and nationhood, In fact our national integrity is jeopardized.

Both the challenge of improving service delivery as well as combating fraudulent activities have necessitated a major investment in technology to enhance the systems of the department..

In this effort the HANIS (Home Affairs National Identification System) project was initiated in order to address amongst others, duplicate identity documents and forged identity documents. The system will play a key role in eliminating the scourge of unscrupulous individuals and syndicates accessing the social security net for profit,

The Department is in the process of establishing a permanent citizen registration campaign. This campaign is geared to specifically concentrate on the registration of births and the issuance of identity documents, especially to disadvantaged citizens living in remote areas of South Africa.

One of the most serious problems we have had to encounter has been the tack of reliable data on which we base our planning to improve service delivery. We need to know the extent of the problem faced by our citizens in accessing Home Affairs services.

I have directed that we need to conduct a survey in this regard and during September 2004 the Center for Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) agreed to conduct a survey on behalf of the Department. The survey will provide information regarding the following aspects;

· The estimated number of unregistered citizens under the age of 16 years,

· The estimated number of citizens that do not have Identity Documents and the reasons therefore,

· The estimated number of blue book and reference book holders there are,

· The estimated number of citizens that have more than one identity document and the reasons therefore,

· Cost factor: Does the current pricing of birth certificates and D's cater for all levels of society,

· Is birth and death registration information available to the public, and

· Determine the effectiveness of the current birth registration campaign

The results of the afore-mentioned survey will be valuable in determining the target areas where this campaign is most needed.

Further objectives of this campaign are;

· To develop comprehensive campaign proposals,

· To up date the National Population Register street address information,

The Fraudulent Marriages Campaign launched in August 2004, together with fraudulent births and deaths campaigns of the Department, also aim to decrease the burden on the social security system as we tighten procedures for registration.

The fraudulent marriages campaign was established to identify, investigate and eradicate fraudulent marriages in South Africa, as well as to ensure everybody's status is properly reflected on the National population register. The campaign has been launched in all nine provinces.

The Department must still intensify an education campaign to safeguard the rights of women and protect them from dangers emanating from the different marriage systems as well as safeguarding under-aged girls from possible abuses inherent to the system of customary marriages. The Department has already revisited marriage legislation and regulations and has requested the Department of Justice & Constitutional Development to fast track the required amendments.

In October 2004, our Deputy Minister launched a joint initiative with the Department of Health of introducing birth registration facilities at maternity centres, hospitals, clinics and mortuaries. The Department has already commenced with the rollout of birth registration facilities at provincial hospital's in the Northern Cape, Kwa-Zulu Natal as well as Limpopo provinces. Currently statistics are not available as the rollout to these provinces took place only during the past week. Initially7 the Department will establish birth registration facilities to 61 provincial hospitals, countrywide. The Department will progressively increase the rollout of these facilities to more than 61 provincial hospitals and is in negotiation with the relevant Health MEC's on the further expansion of this campaign. As indicated above, the establishment of death registration facilities to morgues and hospitals still needs to be explored and is likely to be approved after proposals were formulated.

The Department also intends to participate in the establishment of a Social Security Agency that will shift responsibility of payments to the national sphere in the near future. We will play our role in supporting the phased establishment of the National Social Security Agency.

Furthermore our full participation in the 21 Presidential nodes is becoming increasingly relevant in the context of integrated service delivery. As we participate in the socio-economic development of the nodes, more infrastructure, people and technology will be required and affect our budgeting requirements. The Department awaits survey results of areas where high levels of undocumented citizens are prevalent and these, I suspect, wilt be most prominent in the development nodes. A complete review of our office locations on the basis of demographics as well as socio-historical South African realities is currently being undertaken. The outcome hereof will undoubtedly amplify the need for the extension of our services and will necessitate the opening of new offices, the deployment of mobile units and container offices.

The Department's Strategic Plan is based on the premise of improving service delivery by addressing the impediments of critical people, infrastructure and technology shortcomings prevalent in the Department. The targets and objectives of this strategy are aligned with Governments' Plan of Action and consequently we have reprioritised our expenditure given our resource constraints. We have had to relook at our budget projections and make definite proposals on options for additional allocations. This is in alignment with the medium term budget policy statement that outlines the choices that Government has made about the sequencing of reforms and priorities ahead.

In September 2004 the Department of Home Affairs presented its 2005 MTEF budget proposals. We are happy to report that the National Treasury has noted that our policy determinants justify the review of our baseline allocations. More so, it identified service delivery as a major area for consideration of additional funding. This relates to the centrality of service delivery (Batho Pele) in government. However, the proposed allocation of additional scarce economic resources to the Department will not completely alleviate the challenges that we will continue to face. A critical re-evaluation of the Home Affairs' budget is paramount and this should be done in the context of envisaged expanded social spending of Government as outlined in the Medium Term Budget Policy Statement.

As I have already indicated, our Department plays a supportive role to Departments such as Social Development and Health who are mandated to provide social services. We note the additional funding provided to Social Development from the adjusted estimates for improving the integrity of the grant system and for implementing steps to address deficiencies in the administration of social grants, and we pledge our commitment to strengthen our partnership in this regard.

Once again, we thank the Joint Budget Committee for allowing us the opportunity to address you.

I thank you