ATC170221: Report of the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs on the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) Second and Third Term Expenditure and Performance Reports for 2016/20167 dated-21 February 2017

Home Affairs

Report of the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs on the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) Second and Third Term Expenditure and Performance Reports for 2016/20167 dated-21 February 2017.

 

The Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs, having considered the Second and Third Expenditure and Performance Reports of the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) for 2016/17, reports as follows:

 

1. Introduction

 

The Director-General (DG): Mr M Apleni made the presentation on the performance of the DHA and the Chief Financial Officer (CFO):  Mr G Hollamby made the presentation on the finance report on 31 January 2017. The reports covered two quarters; namely the Second Quarter (July-September) and the Third Quarter (October-December) 2016/17. This report covers the period from July to December 2016. The reports also provides the Committee’s key deliberations and recommendations relating to the DHA performance.

 

2. Progress Against Key Objectives

 

The DHA’s priorities in the 2015/2016 financial year are based on the following three government outcomes and the related strategic objectives listed below them:

 

Outcome 1: Secured South African citizenship and identity.

• All eligible citizens are issued with enabling documents relating to identity and status and;
• An integrated and digitized National Identity System (NIS) that is secure and contains biometric details of every person recorded on the system.

Outcome 2: Secured and responsive immigration system

• Refugees and asylum seekers are managed and documented efficiently;
• Movement of persons in and out of the country regulated according to a risk based approach and;
• Enabling documents issued to foreigners efficiently and securely.

Outcome 3: Services to citizens and other clients that are accessible and efficient

• Secure, effective, efficient and accessible service delivery to citizens and immigrants;
• Good governance and administration;
• Ethical conduct and zero tolerance approach to crime, fraud and corruption and;
• Collaboration with stakeholders in support of enhanced serviced delivery and core business objectives.

 

During the Second Quarter 2016-2017, the DHA had 36 targets and 28 were achieved which represented 78 percent of the targets and eight (8) were not achieved which represented 22 percent of the targets. The Third Quarter had 34 targets and only 24 were achieved representing 71 percent of the targets and 10 targets were not achieved which represented 29 percentage of the targets. He indicated that in First Quarter, the DHA achieved 82 percent of the targets and 18 percent were not achieved.

 

Although the DHA did not achieve all their targets, the DG indicated that there was progress made during the two quarters.

 

 This was the progress made during the Second Quarter:

 

• There were 21 health facilities’ 3Gs has been replaced with ADSL lines;
• A total of 188 239 births that were registered within 30 days after births into the National Population Register;
• A total of 631 015 Smart ID Cards were issued to citizens to replace the Green ID Books;
• There were 631 015 Smart ID Cards were issued to citizens 16 years and above. It was reported that this Smart ID Cards were issued to first time applicants and persons above the age of 60 years;
• A total of 48 326 IDs were issued within 54 working days to first time applicants and 36 168 were re-issued within 47 working days to citizens;
• The DHA fined airliners to the tuned of approximately R1.3 million who failed to comply with boarding advice issued by the Advance Passenger Processing (APP) system;
• The biometric solution was in the process of being fully rolled out at four pilot sites at King Shaka International Airport, OR Tambo International Airport, Cape Town International Airport and Lanseria International Airport.  This is implemented mainly for foreign national arriving into the country and;
• The DHA has launched the Lesotho Special Permit (LSP), similar to the Zimbabwean Special Permit. It is meant to regularise the Basotho who are in South Africa illegally or have acquired the South African documents illegal. The Basotho will have surrender the

documents before 31 December 2016. The LSP will be valid until 31 December 2019. It was reported that there were 158 834 enquiries and the DHA was able to verify 135 370 positively.

 

This was the progress made during the Third Quarter:

 

• It was reported that 95.50 percent of the IDs were issued within to first time applicants within 54 working days and 27 798 IDs were re-issued within 47 working days;

• The enhanced Movement Control (eMCS) was rolled out at Lebombo and Kopfontein Ports of entry and 50 workstations were replaced at the OR Tambo International Airport and; 
• Live Capture new flow was concluded and rolled out to 178 DHA Live Capture offices and banks. The DHA’s Modernisation Programme has received an award for ICT Innovation for Sector at the 2016 GovTech Awards;

 

The DHA has three programmes; namely the administration, Citizens Affairs and Immigration Services.

 

The Performance per programme is summarised in the table below:
 

Programme	No. of Targets		Achieved		Not Achieved
Quarters	Quarter 2	Quarter 3	Quarter 2	Quarter 3	Quarter 2	Quarter 3
a. Administration	22	20	15	14	7	6
b. Citizen Affairs	5	5	5	3	0	2
c. Immigration Services	9	9	8	7	1	2
Total	36	34	28	24	8	10
Percentage			78%	71%	22%	29%

 

The DG reported that challenges faced during the reporting periods and this included the following:

• Limited human resource at capacity at Marabastad in Pretoria. Marabastad is the asylum processing centre and it has been merged with Tshwane Interim Refugee Reception Office (TIRRO). The 80 staff from TIRRO have been transfer to Marabastad; slow IT infrastructure, poor filing systems, poor management practices and the working environment which was not conducive for clients and staff at Marabastad Refugee Office;
• There are ports of entry which still have the old Movement Control System (MCS) and others have eMCS which has led to a high number of false or undetected overstays since the systems have not been integrated;
• Non-filing of vacancies due to attrition of immigration officials is major challenge. Births which occur after hours, weekends and public holidays are not registered within 30 days. There is a capacity issue at the DHA front offices and health facilities as well. December is challenged where many people look for services and the majority of the officials take leave. This has contributed a lot to the regressing in achievement of the targets in the Third Quarter;
• There was also a delay in dispatching of Smart ID card between 23 December and 31

   December 2016;

• There is a general system downtimes. The State Information Technology Agency (SITA)

has contributed to the non-achievement of the targets. There are cases where many offices are experiencing down times. The Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs had a joint meeting with the Portfolio Committee of Telecommunications and Postal Services to receive briefing from SITA on 6 September 2016. It was agreed in that meeting that the DHA and SITA should find a lasting solution to the matter of the network problems at DHA. The DG reported that there has not been an improvement with regard to the network problem;

• There is an accumulation of the manual document verification at the back office and;
•   The issuance of the Refugee Travel Documents was affected by the deployment of

 new NISS infrastructure, the merger of TIRRO with Marabastad and the rationalisation of personnel. It was reported that Marabastad office accounts for 70 percent of the Refugee Travel Documents issued in the country.

• The DHA is using security guards to manage the queues at Home Affairs offices.

 

The DG reported that the following three targets will not be met by 31 March 2017: (1) The Annual Report was not tabled by September 2016 and it was only tabled to Parliament on 5 December 2016 due to the issue of revenue collected by DIRCO in missions abroad; (2) the Border Management Authority (BMA) will not be launched by 1 April 2017 since it is still before Parliament; and (3) the eMCS will not be piloted at one port of entry due.

 

3. Finance Report

Mr Hollamby, the Chief Financial Officer made the presentation on finance. He reported that as at 31 December 2016, the budget of the DHA was R7.2 billion and R5.45 billion had been spent and this represented about 77 percent which is close to the linear projections of 75 percent. This expenditure excludes the self-financing. The self-financing is the collection of revenue from services such as IDs, passports and births certificates. This self-financing is used to offset productions costs.  He reported that the DHA will spend its allocation by 31 March 2017. Citizen Affairs has already spent 99.8 percent but once self-financing is made available, the expenditure will normalise. The self-financing is only made available in the 4th Quarter of the financial year. The DHA had already spent 82 percent of the budget as at 31 December 2016 with the Self-financing excluded.

 

The Compensation of Employees (COE) spending is at 74.2 percent at the end of December 2016. The spending is lower than the linear projection due to resignations, transfers and terminations of services of officials which have not been replaced. The DHA received a letter from National Treasury on 27 June 2016 instructing it not to fill the posts during the 2016/2017 financial year until the Department was within the COE ceiling.

 

Financial Report per Programme
 

Per Programme	Budget	Expenditure	Available	% Spent
	R,000	R,000	R,000
Administration	R2, 163, 047	R1, 507, 849	R655, 198	69.7%
Citizen Affairs	R3, 891, 397	R3, 883, 660	R    7, 737	99.8%
Immigration Affairs	R1, 139, 046	R    887, 062	R251, 974	77.9%
Total	R7, 193, 480	R6, 278, 571	R914, 909	82.46%
Self-Financing		R    736, 956	(R736, 956)	-
Provinces	R1, 744, 955	R1, 353, 599	R 391, 356	77.6%

Expenditure per programme and provinces.

 

Mr Hollamby further reported on the Audit matters. He indicated that the collection of revenue abroad by the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) is being resolved. There is a new audit team established.  The DHA has developed the Audit Action Plan.

 

The Committee engaged with the presentation by the DHA. The Committee expressed concern that there was decline in the targets achieved from Quarter 1 to Quarter 3. The matter of SITA which was addressed in joint meeting of PCs on Home Affairs and Telecommunications and Postal Services in 2016 was still a problem. The Committee indicated that there might be a need for another meeting with the PC on Telecommunications and Postal Services together with SITA and DHA. The matter of downtimes at the offices of DHA is affecting service delivery

 

The registration of births during weekends, after hours and public holidays needed to be addressed. Although the DG reported that the matter of Home Affairs offices opening during weekends is going to the Constitutional Court on 28 February 2017. If the DHA loses the case it would not open on Saturdays.

 

The participation of banks in the applications of Smart ID Cards and Passport was not visible in the banks. The DG indicated that the DHA was pushing to conclude agreements with the banks. There are few branches in Gauteng and Cape Town that have the programme. The Committee also recommended that the DHA should have an outreach programme on the phasing out of the Green ID Book. The matter of revenue collected by DIRCO in foreign missions was a great concern to the Committee.

 

4. Recommendations

After consideration of the second and third quarter expenditure and performance reports, the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs recommends the following:

 

4.1. The DHA should consider conducting an outreach programme on the benefit of acquiring the Smart ID Card and phasing out the Green ID Book.

4.2. The issue of the unreliable network provision by SITA to the DHA should be resolved urgently.

4.3. The National Treasury should consider exempting the DHA on budget cuts as it affects service delivery.

4.4. The DHA and DIRCO should resolve the issue of revenue collection abroad urgently.

4.5. The DHA should comply with the requirement to pay suppliers within 30 days of receipt of invoices.

4.6. The DHA should comply with the employment of persons with disabilities to reach the 2 percent requirement and report on it in future.

 

Report to be considered.