Report of the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs on Budget Vote 4: Home Affairs, dated 4 June 2002:

The Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs, having considered and examined Budget Vote 4: Home Affairs, reports as follows:

On 21 May and 4 June 2002, the Committee was extensively briefed by the Director-General and senior officials on the budget allocation for the Department of Home Affairs for the 2002-03 financial year.

The Committee noted that an amount of R1 251 188 000 is included in the government's budget for 2002-03 in respect of the Department. Compared to 2001 there has been an increase of R228,8 million. The largest percentage of this increase can be attributed to the upgrading the infrastructure of all crucial systems, including rewriting the Population Register, upgrading the Movement Control System, and implementing the Document Management System and transfers to the IEC, to enable it to conduct by-elections, upgrade systems and prepare for the national elections in 2004.

The budget for Administration will grow by 10,3% over the medium term. 64,2% of the allocation for Administration is consumed by personnel expenditure as posts have been filled to increase capacity in the Department.

Spending on professional and special services increases by 9,6% per year until 2004-05 to accommodate the computerisation of the Department and expansion of the IT function.

For the current financial year, 30 offices of the Department for the 10 regions have been identified for computerisation. Regions like the Eastern Cape, Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga will receive priority as they have less than 50% of their offices computerised at present. An amount of R215 000 will also be spent on equipment to upgrade the passport system.

The Committee notes progress in this area, but a lot still needs to be done. This will go a long way towards providing efficient services to our people.

We also believe that computerisation will contribute to the elimination of corruption.

In March 2002, the Cabinet adopted the Department's Cabinet Memorandum 3 of 2002, on the establishment of an electoral law task team. The Committee notes that the Cabinet Memorandum provided for R450 000 for the work of the task team. However, the chairperson of the task team drew up a budget for the task team that amounted to R3,5 million.

The Committee notes with concern that not enough money has been allocated for the task team to do its work. The team has been allocated R450 000, whereas it needs R3,5 million.

We appeal to the government to attend to this matter, as the task team is expected to finish its work by November this year.

The Committee has noted with concern that the Department is still functioning with a staff establishment that was fixed by the Office of the Public Service Commission in 1995. 730 of the Department's posts are vacant; only 234 of these vacancies are funded, and the Department is in the process of filling them. The remaining 496 posts are unfunded and cannot be filled due to public service regulations. These vacancies severely hamper the Department in its efforts to provide an efficient and accessible service to citizens. The results are long queues at virtually all the Department's regional and local offices.

The Committee notes with concern the shortage of staff in the Department. We therefore urge the Department to finalise the compilation of a scientifically-based staff establishment.

The amount allocated to this programme is R580,799 million, and the main spending items include:

* The Hanis project

* Rewriting the population register

* Implementing the Electronic Document Management System.

1. Home Affairs National Identification System (HANIS)

The Committee has been informed that the total expenditure on HANIS until March 2002 amounted to R495 122 478. The Department has also introduced an additional phase, which will be the expansion of HANIS to regional and subregional offices.

The Identification Subsystem is being upgraded to cater for 42 000 forms per day, and should be completed at the end of August 2002, according to the Department.

The budget allocated for 2002-03 will be spent as follows:

Personnel R7,593,042 million

Administrative expenses R1,131,600 million

Inventories R1,124,000 million

Equipment R148,622,899 million

Professional Services R59,458,459 million

The Department is optimistic that it will be able to generate funds for the National Treasury by providing a Remote Verification Service to cater for the needs of the Commercial Sector. This will enable interested parties to query HANIS databases and to do reliable data verification. A call centre for this purpose will be established later in the year.

The Committee noted the progress made by the Department in establishing the HANIS system. It is, however, clear that a lot of interaction with the Department is still needed, especially in the form of committee briefings, to ensure that the implementation of the system occurs with some speed. We also believe that this will go a long way to eliminate corruption in the Department.

The Committee notes the work done by the Department on the population register, especially the registration of three million children eligible for a grant by 2005.

The objective of the EDMS is to implement an effective, real-time, on-line solution that will cater for the automated document management process, resulting in overall business process efficiency. The system will make all Home Affairs records and archiving information immediately available for access to any authorised individual at any workstation in the system, both nationally and internationally.

Phase 1 that is currently being implemented, includes:

- The implementation of a centralised EDMS to cater for the Department's management of business processes related to births, marriages and deaths, and an effective Management Information System

- High volume document capture modules

- Centralised indexing environment

- An effective on-line storage environment

- A disaster recovery facility

- Integration with the National Population Register

The budget for phase 2 is R35 million, and it is envisaged to be utilised for:

(r)TS40¯

Hardware R8 million

Workflow Software R4 million

Training R2,95 million

System Integration R3,3 million

Professional Services R2,7 million

Infrastructere upgrades R5,5 million

Hard- and Software support R5,45 million

Change Management R3,1 million

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4. Improvement of services to poor, rural and disadvantaged communities

The Committee commends the Department for its partnership with a private company, which will provide the Department with 100 freight containers, to be deployed in rural communities, where access to services is difficult due to geographical and logistical reasons.

The Committee urges the Department to expedite the opening of these offices as part of the overall objective of service delivery by the government.

We continue to express concern about the delapidated state of buildings that are used for the provision of Home Affairs services in a number of areas.

Rural masses continue to be denied access, or experience difficulty to obtain access to, Home Affairs services. It is important to move with some speed to ensure that Home Affairs has offices in the rural areas.

We commend and note the container solution that will make services more accessible to rural and disadvantaged communities. It is, however, only a short-term solution. A clear long-term strategic plan should be developed to provide permanent infrastructure for the Department in these communities. The Committee recommends that the Department should draw up a strategic infrastructure development plan to accomplish this.

The Committee notes that the Department recently tabled its second strategic plan. We also note that the Minister emphasised that the reorganisation and restructuring of the Department should be shaped by the Immigration Bill and the devolution of civic affairs delivery functions to municipalities.

The reprioritised amount allocated to this programme is R230 139 million. The main issue addressed in this programme is the redesigning of the Movement Control System (MCS) to a real-time on-line system.

The Committee notes the progress the Department is making in redesigning the Movement Control System to a real-time on-line system.

The objectives of the Movement Control Project are as follows:

- Implement a centrally driven and managed system, which will function on a real-time on-line basis

- Permit immediate and simultaneous access to movement data by all Ports of Entry

- Ensure information integrity and validity pertaining to the movements of aliens and South African residents across our borders

- Improve and enhance service to persons utilising the services of the Chief Directorate: Migration

- Enable integration between all systems and databases utilised by the Chief Directorate: Migration

- Remove backlogs and current inconsistencies in the Movement Control environment

- Introduce electronic workflow to the Movement Control environment to ensure reduction in fraud and corruption opportunities

The budget allocated for the MCS for the current financial year is R45 million, and the breakdown is as follows:

(r)TS45¯

Hardware R15 million

Software R5 million

Workflow Software R2 million

Training R1,5 million

System Integration R2,5 million

Professional Services R6 million

Core infrastructure upgrades R3 million

Change Management R3 million

Hardware and Software support R7 million

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2. Implementation of new Immigration System

The Immigration Bill was approved by the National Assembly in May 2002, and the financial implications of the Bill is estimated at R13,698 million for the 2002-03 financial year.

The Committee notes that the Department is still busy finalising the allocation of funds to implement the new Immigration System. We also note that funds that was earmarked for Immigration under the previous Aliens Control Act will be reprioritised and integrated for implementation of the new system. We further note that the Department is still busy assessing exactly how much funds will be needed to implement the new system.

The number of persons that use our ports of entry to enter and depart from our country, has grown from 19,8 million per year in 1994 to 28,3 million per year in 2001. This represents an increase of 42,9%, while the staff establishment at most of these ports has not been reviewed since 1995 and no real changes in respect of funding or accommodation requirements have materialised.

In 1997, the Cabinet approved an amount of R101 million for upgrading the ports of entry. However, divided between 53 ports, these improvements could still not satisfactorily address the needs at border posts. The Committee was informed by the Department that it simply cannot cope with the increased pressure on its budget, by means of reprioritising existing funds, to upgrade and staff existing border posts and to erect new border posts, which is the expectation raised by the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism in its Cabinet Memorandum to the Cabinet.

The Committee was further informed by the Department that, based on an investigation by a consultant appointed by the Department of Public Works, an amount of R94,6 million is needed to bring the infrastructure at our land border posts up to an acceptable level to cope with the increased flow of travellers through them, to create a favourable impression as visitors enter the RSA and to ensure an acceptable level of security at these ports of entry.

The Committee recognises the damage that results from uncontrolled and unregulated migration to South Africa. We believe that the new immigration legislation passed by the Committee will go a long way to provide the Department with teeth to deal with the real issues that face South Africa as a result of economic migration to South Africa.

The reprioritised amount allocated to this programme is R227 227 million, and includes:

The increase of funding to the Film and Publication Board over the medium term is necessary to accommodate the expansion of the mandate of the Board to include the protection of children from exploitation and internet pornography.

The Committee expresses concern that the Department is owed a lot of money by other departments that had made use of printing services.

We also note that, having completed a feasibility study on the possibility to privatise the Government Printing Works, and having submitted to Cabinet a number of alternatives, the Cabinet approved that a public enterprise be established, with a small private equity shareholding, and that the objective is to recover labour and material costs.

The Committee notes the Financial Statements of the Electoral Commission for 1998-99, 1999-00 and 2000-01, including the report of the Auditor-General on the same, recently referred to the Committee.