Ba-Pele briefing on their Proposed Integrated Death Declaration System for the Department of Home Affairs

Meeting report

Briefing by Ba-Pele
Mr Provin Mokwena, Chief Executive Officer: Ba-Pele, explained the current process used by the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) to register deaths. He explained that when an individual died at home of either a terminally ill reason or a natural death, a doctor was required for death certification and funeral undertakers were necessary for burial arrangements. In the case of unknown deaths, the Medico Legal Laboratory was required for investigations. If the individual died in a rural area, the tribal authority had the autonomy to declare the death without a doctor or undertaker being present.

A Death Registration Form (DRF) had to be completed. The undertakers would use a copy of the DRF to register the dead body in his/her private mortuary. The Medico Legal Laboratory would use a copy of the DRF to register the known or unknown dead body including the cause of the death. If the cause was unknown, the notification form would say that the case was still under investigation. A tribal authority could use the DRF to register a death independently at their home.

Ba-Pele’s current distress was that there was a lot of fraud in the process and it was an inconvenience to all, including the undertakers, doctors, the public and the family of the deceased. Ba-Pele questioned the safety of the documents concerning death registrations. The processed documents were being used by many companies after it had been registered at the DHA. This kind of fraud put the identity status of all at risk and any falsified death documents that were processed contaminated and put at risk the reliability of the data within the Home Affairs National Identification System (HANIS).

Doctors certifying deaths in the country could not be readily proven as good standing legally registered doctors in the death notification documents. Some doctors colluded with the undertakers for short cuts to certify death without being present or seeing the corpse for examination. There is no mechanism to prove their presence.

On some occasions, it could not be verified that the undertakers existed and if they were still operating. There were no mechanisms in place to prove that the informant was present at undertaker or government mortuaries when a copy of a death notice is registered. There was no mechanism to match the correctness of the dead bodies’ names, identity number and their fingerprint before a death notice is registered as a true copy. There was no public search system in place to help the family find a missing person in government mortuaries and there was no system that would allow the government to identify enormous piles of unknown dead bodies in government mortuaries.

Mr Alex Dibodu, Executive Chairperson: Ba-Pele, stated that they were proposing Integrated Death Declaration Infrastructure for the new Integrated Death Declaration System (IDDS). The infrastructure would serve the envisaged coordinated databases that Ba-Pele would develop for the industry. The databases would cater to undertakers, government mortuaries and tribal authorities. New databases would include the National Funeral Practitioners Database for Undertakers, the National Medico Legal Laboratories for Forensic Pathology Services and the National Tribal Authorities Database for remote rural areas. The databases would be linked to the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA), the DHAs Population Register for Identification and a public search engine for missing persons. The search engine could also be used to inform people of deaths that were unknown to them. This would be done through a Short Message Service (SMS) and would be linked to government mortuaries’ data compilation.

This system would be used to eradicate fraud on death documents, it would transform the funeral practice and it would enforce doctors’ presence at examinations.

Discussion
The Chairperson noted that it was not every day that Members came to Parliament to discuss mortuaries, deaths and cadavers. Members were not comfortable with these topics; however, it was a reality of life.

Ms P Maduna (ANC) asked Ba-Pele what they hoped to achieve, as it seemed that they were doing the same job as an undertaker. She was worried about the registration of missing people and street children.

Mr Dibodu replied that Ba-Pele was not doing the same work as an undertaker. An undertaker’s job was to bury people. Most families depended on undertakers to register the deaths. Ba-Pele was trying to help all the stakeholders, which constituted the deceased, the informants, the undertaker, the doctor and the public at large. This would be done to ensure that the proper information was processed in DHAs systems.

Ms M Maunye (ANC) addressed the National Funeral Practitioners Database for Undertakers. She asked if it was a forum. She did not understand it. She asked how Ba-Pele planned to link the system with the population register. She worried that if the DHA opened the population register to link with companies like Ba-Pele, the register would become “contaminated”. She wanted more clarity on the public search engine that Ba-Pele was proposing. She wondered how it would help with people who passed on but could not be identified. She did not think the DHA would be able to assist Ba-Pele with regard to assisting funeral undertakers financially. Their budget was already under pressure. Would tribal leaders be able to afford the registration charges? Was the proposed system for the registration of deaths too long? The current system was not very long.

Mr Dibodu addressed the question of whether the National Funeral Practitioners Database for Undertakers was a forum. He replied that, currently, anyone could open companies for undertaking. When Ba-Pele investigated the matter, they could not find out how many undertakers there were in the country. There were companies registered as caterers that were performing the duties of undertakers. There were also companies registered as funeral schemes, but they were not performing burials or other undertaking services. Ba-Pele was told by the DHA that they did not have a database for registered undertakers. Ba-Pele felt that they had to know whom they were dealing with if they were going to deal with the matter of undertakers. Therefore, the National Funeral Undertakers Database was vital for the sector.

In terms of the public search engine, currently when a person died, the police officer that opened the inquest docket had the responsibility of investigating and identifying the person. This could sometimes take a very long time and there were very limited resources that could be used to identify the person quickly. The search engine would be linked to the population register. It would also be linked to the DHA where the person could be identified by their fingerprints. The identification would be kept in Ba-Pele’s system and would be issued a national number. The public would be able to send a text message to Bapele’s system requesting information about missing persons. The SMS should contain Identification numbers and other information of the missing person. The system would hold information about deceased persons being held in government mortuaries. If there was a match, the information would be sent to the person’s phone.

Mr Mokwena answered that Ba-Pele understood that the population registry was a key national security project in the country. Ba-Pele would be providing the DHA with important information on an “interface” basis. They would never use private information that was meant for the DHA. Ba-Pele would not interfere with DHA systems; however, the DHA would be providing them with information.

Mr Mokwena stated that there was a serious problem with the queues at Home Affairs offices around the country. Some undertakers were not even willing to go to those offices. The current system that was being proposed would allow important information to be processed more efficiently without an official needing to be present at the offices. Sometimes officials had to be bribed to provide important documents more efficiently. The documents and information had to be processed electronically.

Mr Dibodu said that Ba-Pele was told by the DHA during their interaction that there was a problem with the finances. Ba-Pele understood this and told the DHA that they would create the system for them for free.

The Chairperson remarked that the Committee wanted further details about the nature of the interaction between Ba-Pele and the DHA in discussing the proposed system. Ba-Pele spoke about the DHA as if they were a passive partner or a passive recipient of their services. The Committee needed to know about the advantages and disadvantages of the partnership.

Mr Mokwena replied that Ba-Pele had been engaging with the DHA since 2003 and had made several presentations to them. The DHA told Ba-Pele that they understood their proposal from a business perspective; however, they could not engage any further on the matter as there were difficulties on the IT side. The project was not an IT project but it involved other aspects of IT that the DHA was not knowledgeable of. A project manager from the DHA was called in by the director for the population register to look at the proposal to see how Ba-Pele would interact with the DHA and how the proposal would assist the DHA. The project manager was pleased with the proposal. He even said that he wanted to work with Ba-Pele in the future. He then resigned two months later. From then on, it was difficult to reach the DHA. Ba-Pele then wrote to the Ministry. The Ministry said they understood the proposal, but they had to talk to all the parties that were involved. The DHA was called in and was told to submit a report to the Ministry about the proposal. The Ministry informed Ba-Pele in 2007 that the DHA had appointed consultants to re-engineer all the processes and systems in the DHA. They advised Ba-Pele to make another presentation through a consultancy firm called Fever Tree Consulting. The DHA was present at this meeting. The DHA representatives at the meeting said they would present the proposal to the decision makers within the Department. Ba-Pele was then told that the DHA would not engage with Ba-Pele any further because they had involved a third party in the discussions. Before the presentation was made to the DHA, Ba-Pele had a meeting with the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA). The HPCSA had said that they would give Ba-Pele access to certain information. A few weeks later, Ba-Pele had received a letter from the HPCSA saying that they had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the DHA that related to certificates of death. They had to stop interacting with Ba-Pele. Ba-Pele then phoned Fever Tree Consulting to inform them of their frustrations and they said that they did not know anything about the MoU that was signed between the DHA and the HPCSA. Fever Tree Consulting seemed to have a very hostile attitude towards Ba-Pele. Ba-Pele became frustrated and started to worry that their idea would be stolen. They did not know who to turn to and wrote to the Presidency after the Presidential Hot Line was launched. The Presidency responded to the letter and sought clarity from the DHA. Ba-Pele received a phone call from the Personal Assistant (PA) in the Director-General’s Office saying that Mr Mavuso Msimang, Director-General: DHA, understood Ba-Pele’s frustrations. However, Fever Tree Consulting was not stealing Ba-Pele’s intellectual property. Ba-Pele then called for a meeting with the Director of Management Services in the DHA. Ba-Pele was asked why they had written a letter to the Presidency as it made the DHA look incompetent. Ba-Pele was then “blacklisted” from the Department and told that they no longer had a relationship with the DHA. The DHA refused to meet with Ba-Pele or take their calls. This was why Ba-Pele had come to the Portfolio Committee.

The Chairperson stated that it was not his duty to give legal advice; however, Ba-Pele had to be able to defend and secure its intellectual property rights. Ba-Pele engaged with the Department and also made use of the Presidential Hot Line. It was necessary to protect ones rights if one felt that they were violated. The Committee would talk to the Department to find out what the issues were. He wanted to make it clear that while the Committee was responsible for oversight over the government’s policy execution, it was not in the position to tell the DHA to get into contractual agreements with private companies. If there was work to be done in the DHA, the processes had to be transparent and fair. There had to be fairness, transparency and integrity with all process involved in open tenders. Companies had to compete on the merits of their own capabilities. The Committee had heard Ba-Pele’s version of events; however, it was also necessary to hear the DHAs explanation as well.

The meeting was adjourned.