03 February 2025
Good morning Programme Director, Ms Mamokubung Moroke
FirstRand Head of Social Investing, Ms Konehali Gugushe
First National Bank Nav Chief Executive Officer , Mr Jacques Celliers
Deloitte Africa Tax & Legal, Managing Director Itireleng Kubeka
A2A Kopano CEO, Haroon Moosa
Distinguisted leaders of our partners
Director-General of Home Affairs,
DDGs, senior managers and officials,
Our special guests, the Visa Backlog Eradication Team, also known as the Visa
Backlog Bomb Squad
Members of the media
Ladies and gentlemen
Good morning to you all,
Thank you for making time to join us today as we celebrate the work of our Backlog Bomb Squad, achieved through collaboration between the Department of Home Affairs and organised business.
Some of you may be wondering why I’m referring to this team as the Bomb Squad.
I understand that some colleagues from business started using this moniker a few months ago.
But I think it applies to everyone who has worked tirelessly on eradicating the visa and permitting backlog, which started out in April 2024 at over 306 000 unprocessed applications dating back over a decade in some cases.
The Bomb Squad, of course, is a nod to the Springboks.
You see, during the 2019 Rugby World Cup, coach Rassie Erasmus surprised the sporting world by becoming the first coach to select six forwards on the eight-member replacement bench.
This innovative, out-of-the-box approach took the rest of the rugby world by surprise, as it gave the Springboks the ability to finish matches even more strongly than they had started them.
Isn’t that exactly what our Backlog Bomb Squad has achieved?
By drawing on resources and support from across the public and private sector, we strengthened our team in an innovative new way.
Like the Springbok Bomb Squad, we did so to ensure that we end much stronger than we started, by finally getting the backlog project over the try line.
And, in the process, we have demonstrated what we can achieve when we embrace new ways of thinking to achieve a shared goal.
I have said from day one, that Home Affairs in general – and the backlog project in particular – are more important to South Africa than what may appear from face value.
The truth is that, before we brought our collective Bomb Squad onto the field, many people had given up on the idea that their applications would ever be processed.
This was one of the metaphors used, alongside issues like long queues and system downtime, to justify the idea that Home Affairs was beyond redemption, with some people renaming it to “Hell Affairs.”
It is for precisely this reason, that it is so important that we make meaningful and urgent progress at Home Affairs.
The type of progress that we are celebrating here today.
Because if we can make progress at Home Affairs, then we will restore the public’s faith that South Africa itself can make progress.
Of course, the eradication of the visa backlog is also important in and of itself.
Each application represented an individual waiting for recognition, resolution, or an opportunity to move forward with their lives. For too long, these delays became a symbol of inefficiency and lost trust, something we could no longer allow to define our department.
But more than that, the backlog has, for far too long, acted as a millstone around the neck of the Department of Home Affairs and as a handbrake on South Africa’s economic growth prospects.
It deprived our economy of the investment and skills it needs to grow and achieve the apex priority of the Government of National Unity, which is to create jobs.
But the benefits of this work go even beyond that.
It also reduces the legal risk to the Department, because every application that is in the backlog is a potential lawsuit.
If we think about it this way, the work of the backlog has removed hundreds of thousands of potential lawsuits, saving the government million upon millions.
So, what we celebrate today is not simply the clearing of files; we celebrate the reclaiming of dignity for the people we serve and the beginning of a reformed, more efficient and secure future for Home Affairs.
That future, must be built entirely around digital transformation.
As we conclude our work on the backlog, I want us to collectively lift our eyes to look to the future.
One of the curses of backlogs is that they keep you trapped in the past.
But now we must lift our gaze to not only ensure that backlogs do not arise again, but that we fundamentally re-engineer our systems and processes around digital technology.
I want to invite the partners who have supported us on this journey to stay the course with us.
We understand the constraints of the national fiscus.
We understand that Home Affairs has a 60% vacancy rate as a result.
But we are determined not to be deterred by this reality.
Instead, it only motivates us to embrace the opportunities offered by technology even more fully, as it is the only way we will ever be able to make up the capacity we require.
The year 2025 is going to be one of major reform at Home Affairs, and invite our Bomb Squad and partners to be part of this progress.
No one person can make change happen – progress is a team sport, as we have seen with the backlog.
This year, I want our adjudicators to focus on clearing appeals flowing from the backlog.
I want high quality decisions where our adjudicators act as risk managers – not as gatekeepers.
This means paying close attention to the quality of decisions to ensure that we do not lock out the money and skills we require to achieve the GNU’s top priority of driving economic growth.
I also want adjudicators to ensure the successful rollout of the Trusted Tour Operator Scheme, which has the potential to supercharge tourism from China and India to create jobs for more South Africans.
Statistics show that for every twelve additional tourists brought to our country, one new formal job is created.
But I also want us to go beyond that.
In 2025, we must dramatically expand access to Home Affairs services by building on the successful pilot project that has seen the department offer its services in 30 bank branches for the past decade.
It is high time for us to dramatically expand this partnership to ensure that Home Affairs services are offered in hundreds if not thousands of bank branches.
And I want our clients to have the option of having their IDs, passports and eventually other enabling documentation delivered securely right to their doorsteps.
All of these reforms will contribute towards our five-year vision to deliver Home Affairs @ home.
Under this strategy, our aim is to get both South Africans and visitors out of long queues and offices by enabling them to access all of our services digitally – from the comfort of their own home, or their local bank branch or library.
I know we can succeed if we work together – as the Backlog Bomb Squad has proven beyond any shadow of a doubt.
So, even as we use this moment to lift our aim higher, today is a day of celebration.
To everyone who worked long hours, at night, over weekends and over holidays to clear the visa backlog, I say: thank you.
Please give yourselves a round of applause, for your dedication is serving as an inspiration to our country.
To Director-General Tommy Makhode and his officials in Home Affairs: thank you for the diligence and commitment to this project.
And to our partners from business: thank you for stepping up in the interests of Team South Africa when your country needed you.
Be assured that in Home Affairs you have a partner that understands that it is businesses that create jobs, and that job creation can only flourish when the government creates a conducive and enabling environment for investment and growth.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Today marks a milestone not only for the Department of Home Affairs, but for South Africa as a whole.
Today, we celebrate the confirmation that we can fix the many challenges our country faces.
The Backlog Bomb Squad has restored our faith that South Africa’s best days are indeed still to come.
Like the Springboks, we now have a clear playbook that shows us what the principles are we need to embrace to deliver on our vision for Home Affairs @ home.
Thinking innovatively and having the courage to try new ways of doing things.
Embracing collaboration to harness the skills and resources of our entire society.
And investing in technology to fundamentally reform our processes.
Let today serve as a marker to us all that South Africa can become a better place for all its people, that we can solve our problems, when we unite and work together as one.
For that is another commonality between the Bok Bomb Squad and the Backlog Bomb Squad.
Whether you are from Home Affairs, from business or from civil society: we are all South Africans, and we all want a country that works better.
Thank you for your support.
Let us go out and build on this momentum to show our country that South Africa’s best days, are still to come.
Thank you.
For media enquiries, please contact:
Siya Qoza - Cell number: 082 898 1657
Duwayne Esau – Spokesperson for the Minister, Cell number: 077 606 9702
ISSUED BY THE MINISTRY OF HOME AFFAIRS