17 MAY 2023, GOOD HOPE CHAMBER (PARLIAMENT)
Honourable House Chairperson
The Minister of Home Affairs Dr. Aaron Motsoaledi
Members of the Executive
The Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs
Members of the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs
The Chairperson of the IEC
The Director-General of Home Affairs
The CEO of the Government Printing Works
The Commissioner of the BMA
Fellow Country Men and Women,
House Chairperson,
The budget we are presenting today empowers citizens and residents of South Africa to claim and secure their legal identity without which no one is able to prove their exitance and meaningfully interact with the universe. This budget gives identify and affirms existence of our newly born citizens and, thereby securing the future existence of our mother land. This budget allows our youth access to education and allows citizens access to economic services. The budget we are presenting enables our citizens to travel the world driving economic growth and solidifying our existence and influence in the global world.
The allocation of the department’s resources to its key programmes in this budget vote allows us tocontribute immensely to the improvement of the lives of our people. Over the 2022/23 to 2024/25 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) period, the indicative allocations grew from R9, 405 billion in 2022/23 to R9, 751 billion in 2024/25. The allocation of these resources allows us toconsolidate our gains by continuing to deliver services and products vital to the socio-economic well-being of the citizens and residents in line with the objectives, priorities and commitments outlined in the Medium-Term Strategic Framework of 2019 to 2024.NHouse Chairperson we have always been prudent with the resources allocated to the department. This is evidenced by the five consecutive Unqualified Audit reports received by the department over the past years.
Over the medium term, the department will continue to focus on securing international migration; modernizing our ICT infrastructure to ensure integrated planning and efficient administration, reduce fraud; and ensure the timely issuing of permits and visas to facilitate economic growth and job creation.
We have over the years spent 100% of our budget evidenced by the latest audited results for the 2021/2022. The additional funding of R 837 Million spread in the financial years 2022/2023 to 2024/2025 received from treasury has allowed us to ease our capacitation pressures in our frontline offices.
The 2023/2024 budget allows us to broaden access to services, expansion of footprint and presence inhealth facilities throughout the country, and in that regard, we have made meaningful gains for the parents of new born babies to register their children within 30 days, as required by the law.
Despite Covid 19 impacting negatively on our self-financing activities which we use for the health facilities foot print expansion, we are happy that we are back on course and we project to raise just over R 800 Million some of which will go towards the foot print expansion of Health Facilities.
In 2021/22, we had set a target of registering 700 000 new births within 30 days. We however surpassed this target by registering a total of 1 018 718 births, of which 78.5% were registered within 30 calendar days. This percentage is an increase from the 73.7% of the previous financial year. The budget we are presenting will allow us to build towards normalizing early birth registration at above 90% by the year 2024.
Acting on our previous commitments we have rolled out BABS to all of our offices that process Smart ID Cards and Passports. Out of the nearly 7.3 million people who accessed services such as birth and death certificates, IDs and passports from the Civic Branch over the last year, 1.2 million people had made bookings on the Branch Appointment Booking System (BABS). BABS is another example of how we are embracing technology to offer our services to people at their convenience. This is backed by our research, as commissioned though a Customer Satisfaction Survey, which confirms that there are positive developments towards achieving a one-day service in our frontline offices; meaning that most of our clients are now being serviced on the same day without having to return.
House Chairperson, it is important to remember that our Department has come a long way in ensuring that our people receive the best of services and products as directed by the Constitution. Through these gains we have managed to expand our Smart ID drive to schools to reduce the number of pupils who write their Grade 12 examination without an ID Document.
To achieve this we have implemented the Department’s multi-channel strategy, mobile offices continue to be deployed to geographical areas with a population threshold of 40 000 people and below. Most of these are in the rural and far flung areas and schools. This deployment is intended to assist clients mainly on Smart ID Card applications and other departmental services.
We are currently running with a fleet of 127 mobile units deployed across all provinces. Out of this number an additional twenty (20) mobile units amounting to R33 448 350 were procured in the 2022/23 financial year and there are plans to procure more than 100 mobile units to the value of R167 million in the financial year 2023/24. This we can never be able to achieve without this budget which allows us to advance better service to our clients the Citizens and residents of South Africa.
By making use of mobile units we’ve been able to target learners, ensuring that those doing Grade 12 are able to sit for their exams having their Smart ID Cards. During this past financial year, we visited 3 254 schools working in partnership with the Department of Basic Education. The additional mobile units purchased and the ones to be purchased in the 2023/24 financial year will extend our reach and greatly enhance our school ID campaign.
In the past financial year, the budget enabled us to conduct visits at 865 sites where there is no DHA footprint as identified by the Hybrid Access Model. This fleet has been able to service 204 317 clients of which 107 861 Smart ID first issues were for school learners, whilst 96 465 were re-issued applications in the 2022/23 financial year. This resulted into citizens saving thousands of rands in travel costs that would have been otherwise incurred if they had travelled to our offices.
This budget will enable us to expand our efforts in the issuing of Smart ID Cards to our citizens. I am pleased to announce that, since the inception of the live capture system in 2013, the department has issued more than 21 million Smart ID Cards to South African citizens. The replacement of the old green barcoded ID books with the new Smart ID Cards action plan remains on track, with new milestones set for each year. Honourable members, the 2022/23 budget allowed us to issue a total of 2 612 328 Smart ID Cards surpassing the targeted 2,2 million as was planned.
Of the 2.6 Million Smart ID Cards issued, 914 367 were for first-time applicants comprising mainly of the youth. This is indicative of the impact that we are making in the lives of young people of our country. This we can never do without the resources and the budget that we are deliberating on today.
The budget allocation for the financial year 2022/23 has allowed us to increase the planned issuance of Smart ID cards by 412 328 which is an improvement as compared to the previous financial year. In the 2023/24 financial year we will issue 2.5 million Smart ID Cards to citizens aged 16 years old and above.
The 2023/24 budget allows us to continue exploring new ways to better our service offering to citizens.The Kiosk with the built in components or devices compatible with DHA system and in line with DHAspecifications has been delivered and is on site in our office in Pretoria. The presence of the machine allows for system integration testing between KIOSK user Interface and DHA systems including NPR, HANIS/ABIS, Live Capture and IRE, systems capable of rendering the services covered by the KIOSK.
The KIOSK user interface application has been developed and tested. The application allows for the interaction between the client and the machine during the application of services. The Business Requirements specifications that outlines integration of KIOSK user interface and DHA systems was developed and approved. We envisaged to have system integration completed by end of May and testing of the end to end process completed by the 15th June 2023.
Chairperson, we are exploring partnerships with more institutions It gives great pleasure that we concluded the Menlyn Mall office and it was subsequently opened in the financial year 2022/23, indicative of our commitment to bring services to the people!
As part of our footprint expansion programme focussing on purpose-built and state-owned Home Affairs offices, we are glad to announce that our infrastructure built programme is aligned to the District Development Model (DDM) service delivery model. A new fit-for-purpose office is being built in Taung, which falls under my DDM area of responsibility in the North West Dr R.S.M District Municipality, other offices are under construction in Limpopo - Thohoyandou and Mokopane and KwaDukuza in KwaZulu-Natal. Honourable Chairperson indeed ASIMILE SIYAQHUBA.
As a Department, we have not been spared the challenges imposed by loadsheding,which frequently result in network disruptions. To respond to these challenges, in the 2022/23 budget, the department installed generators in 199 offices. In addition, six offices will be modernised in the current financial year 2023/24, bringing the total number of modernized offices to 205.
House chairperson the quality of our Human Capital is very critical in the improvement of service offering by the department. This budget allows us to continue with our training and re-skilling initiatives to ensure that we have a professional Human Capital base that can support the vision of a modern, professional and secure Department of Home Affairs that is able to serve the public in an efficient and professional manner.
The Surveys commissioned by the department indicate that there is improvement in staff conduct. The department’s Learning Academy through the previous budget was able to achieved the following:
- 303 officials - Trained on Leadership and Management Development.
- 434 officials - Trained on Immigration Services Skills programmes
- 515 officials - Trained on customer care
- 581 officials - Trained on civic services skills programmes
- 915 officials - Trained on ICT programmes
- 21 newly appointed adjudicators trained for the permitting unit
- 63 officials to be deployed to missions also trained
All these trainings that improve our Human Capacity are made possible through the proper use of our resources.
This budget chairperson ensures that we continue to play a leading role in the ID4Africa multi-stakeholder movement which promotes digital identity in Africa. South Africa has been leading in terms of its demographic database (National Population Register) as it was discovered upon analysis amongst other African countries that South Africa is way ahead in terms of the building blocks of its family tree. This was demonstrated through its linkage from Civil Registration(CRVS) where the country was able to link its demographics to its biometrics.
South Africa was able to demonstrate through its modernization programme the techniques that lead to the issuance of Smart ID Cards with the latest technology and security that has not been cracked thus far. It is for that reason that South Africa is been used as a benchmark for other African countries in terms of its latest technology. We are way ahead of our peers chairperson more especially when it comes to Civic Registration however chair we are not triumphalist because Martin Luther King teaches us that “Our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change” Hence we strive to do more.
In Conclusion House Chairperson, I would like to thank the Minister Dr. Motsoaledi for his continued leadership, support, and guidance. The Director General Mr. Makhode, and the entire management team of Home Affairs, Government Printing Works and the Boarder Management Authority for the tireless work that they continue to do. I wish to also thank the Chairperson and members of thisPortfolio Committee on Home Affairs for your oversight and positive contributions and advise on how we can better improve our service offering. I would like to thank the department’s stakeholders and the public who continuously support our efforts. Honourable chairperson let me thank our frontline officials who have worked tirelessly to implement the mandate of the department.
House Chairperson Home Affairs is too important to all of us to the unborn-the living and the dead and so as members of this House we carry the responsibility to always make sure that this institution works.
I Thank You.