Thank you very much for the invitation to brief the Portfolio Committee about the important matters of the information systems in the Department, as well as that of the Films and Publications Board.

This Portfolio Committee expressed great interest, during the budget vote process in June, on both these issues as well as the others that the Minister had addressed, and has continued to demonstrate immense concern throughout its work.

This invitation, therefore, continues to underscore this point that the Portfolio Committee pays close attention to the work the Executive and the public service does, and at the same time, it underlines the good relations that exist, and should exist, between the Department and the Portfolio Committee.

We have asked the Deputy Director General: Information Systems to be present, to provide more details to the brief remarks I shall make on the matter of the Department’s information systems. He is interacting with the Portfolio Committee for the very first time, and I assure you, he is excited.

During the Budget Vote, we made the statement that we were deeply concerned about the increasing rate of child pornography in our country. We indicated that we were going to develop a campaign to mobilise the rest of our society to act together and urgently to combat this heinous crime, to raise the level of awareness and education of our society and to call them into action. We were concerned that as long as the public did not know about this matter, that ignorance was going to breed more tragic acts of the violation of the innocence of the children.

There are no words to describe this crime!

We have time and again made the point that child pornography is not merely the image one downloads from the internet or email, or obtains in one form or the other, but that it is the real rape and sexual exploitation of a real child by a real person! We have emphasized the point that this is a form of crime so serious that only a multi-sectoral campaign, involving all stakeholders in and beyond government, is required to combat it.

Often a question is asked, which is worse: committing a crime or sitting idly watching someone suffering while a crime is being committed? The fact is that there are instances when the victims of a crime possess within and among them the ultimate power to put an end to the crime. But, there are instances when a crime is being committed against people who are way too feeble to protect themselves against their offenders. Greater than the act of the offender itself, the worse crime here is that committed by those who sit by and let it happen.

The point is that we must refuse to sit by and watch the children being violated in such a gruesome a manner as this one of pornography.

This point was taken further when both the NA and the NCOP adopted the amendments we tabled before them to tighten the legislative framework and to add impetus to the fight against this evil crime.

It is our privilege to report to the Committee that since the commitments we made both during the budget vote and during the tabling of the amendments to the Films and Publications Act, concrete steps towards launching a country-wide campaign to combat child pornography have been taken.

Some of these steps included:

• the recommendations to the Cabinet of the members of the Examiners and Chief Examiners of the Films and Publications Boards, given that the term of office of the incumbent Board has lapsed;
• we have held a workshop with the NGOs, which included representatives of the Presidency, Social Development Department and others to initiate the process;
• we have met with the representatives of the Internet Service Providers Association, the National Prosecutions Authority and the SAPS Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences (FCS) Unit to raise these matters with them, and to receive an update of what they are doing on their part;
• we have engaged the media in seeking to raise their own interest on the matter, and to enlist them as partners in the campaign;
• we have continued to interact with other countries, and to participate in international conferences that deal with the matter; and
• all the software and hardware for the child pornography hotline has been installed, and we have the toll-free number already that we will launch on the 26^th November 2004.

We have met the FCS with regard to the recent arrests in Pietermaritzburg and Muldersdrift and we received a detailed briefing of the case, the details of which we cannot disclose as the cases are sub-judice.

We have not yet updated the Regulations, given that the President has not yet signed the amended Act. However, we intend in the new Regulations to regulate the internet service providers, to ensure that access and usage by children is through strict specified rules.

We are on course to deal with outstanding matters concerning the FPB: the appointment of the CEO, the outstanding members of the Review Board.

However, several matters have continued to bother us, and we shall continue to seek ways to deal with them. These include that:

• According to the SAPS Child Protection Unit, there is a worrisome escalation of violence against the children in South Africa, as well as an increase in the number of child pornography cases reported to the SAPS offices;
• Further, as the SAPS CPU states, the extent of this problem in South Africa is not yet fully known. The little we know indicates, amongst other things, that this crime exists and is escalating in our country; that it is very closely linked to poverty; that South Africa is seen as a huge market for this crime; that lack of public awareness and regulations for internet service providers exacerbates it;
• Paedophiles use internet chat-rooms to groom children sexually and lure them into physical contact and to abuse them. Given the volume of traffic on the internet, no single organization can deal with such a problem;
• This crime has very intimate links with another crime of the trafficking of children for purposes of sexual exploitation; and that South Africa is seen as a target for this crime. According to Molo Songololo, a Cape Town based NGO, this is caused by high poverty levels, the breakdown of family units, changing cultural practices and a high and still rising demand for sex with children. Sadly, parents are often fingered out as villains in the act of selling their own children.

Further, there are several other things that concern us, which also need our attention:

• there is an escalation of pornographic material in this country and this is having an adverse effect on children, given the easy access they have to these materials in their own homes and in the shops that are not taking precautions to ensure children do not access these materials. We all know that pornography, as well as radically causing moral decay, also creates interest for sex and is used by paedophiles to groom children for child pornography;
• some hotels have pay channels that could very easily be accessible to the children, that they can operate without supervision;
• there is a proliferation of adult shops, some located on spots that are not legally authorised, many unregistered and functioning without permission;
• movies on TV still fall outside the ambit of regulation of the FPB, and this makes it possible for TV stations to flout the Films and Publications Act and show, at inappropriate times, adult movies. Perhaps, it is time we considered bringing TV and films under one authority, to ensure that broadcasters are also regulated and follow the classification guidelines of the FPB.

We are proceeding from the premise that the information systems are there to provide support to the core business of Home Affairs.

A few months ago, the IT branch in the Department lacked the requisite leadership to be able on time to deliver on its mandate. It functioned without the necessary leadership of the DDG and the Chief Director, lacking the requisite human capacity to carry out its mandate, with the real threat that its aspects of the Strategic Plan would not be met. The relationship with business was not coherent, business was not taking their responsibilities serious in so far as helping and working with IT and there was no business plan and appropriate strategic plan.

And, the morale among the staff was low, with many leaving the branch making it difficult to retain our staff capacity and therefore to fulfil our mandate. As a result, there was a concern that there were too many projects than there was capacity to deal with them, and hence consultants and contractors had been brought along to help cope with the situation, exorbitant though this exercise has been.

Having had several meetings with the IT branch, and having made the preceding observations, we came to the conclusion that the Deputy Minister should meet fortnightly with the IT branch management, and monthly with the general staff of the branch in order both to provide leadership and support and to create a sense of closeness to what they are doing, the challenges they are facing and the solutions they are providing. With the appointment of the DDG, we have revised the schedules of these meetings, but they are proceeding nonetheless. The DDG has his own ways to provide further leadership to the branch.

The Deputy Minister had convened two workshops with the branch: to discuss the strategic plan to fulfil the quick wins pronounced in the Budget Vote earlier during this financial year and to discuss the business model that informs our IT strategy. The DDG has, in November, convened the Information Systems Strategic Review workshop further to develop the business model and produce the technical architectures to enhance IT service delivery to the Department of Home Affairs (DHA).

We are confident that we shall soon fill all the forty six (46) advertised posts in the Information Service branch, which include the Chief Director and two Directors’ posts. Further to enhance our work, we shall take some Interns into the branch, who shall both acquire on-the-job training and develop work experience and assist us to cope, hopefully, with some of our resources challenges. The DDG is dealing with the crucial question of recruitment and retaining staff, and of reducing, to the extent that we radically can, the fees we spend on consultants.

We have proceeded to revise the strategy to computerise all our offices, including through the reprioritisation of our budget and shifting of funds, which shall happen at the Information Systems Strategic Review workshop. Further to this, our information system shall be connected to ensure that there is proper communication between the systems right throughout our offices at home and abroad.

The HANIS core infrastructure system is operational and the two pillars, namely, the AFIS and System Integration have, to a reasonable extent, been implemented; and the online verification component, with a client-service call centre unit, is also operational. The main objective of the system has been achieved in that it does ensure unique registration, and just over 2.4 million records (ID applications and case files) have been stored in the HANIS database; while an accurate and reliable identity verification function has been tested. The DDG shall report at length on the progress made in this regard, as well as the challenges faced.

We are proceeding to work on the development of a new Population Register. We expect that in 2005, we shall both issue out the tender for the new PR system, and to start implementing the system. We expect a fully operational and integrated Population Register system in 2006. We would need to ensure the necessary legislative requirements and changes to implement this system without problems.

Having approved the implementation of the national smart ID card project, we expect that first smart cards will be ready by February 2006, and that as from 2007, they will be delivered to South African citizens, permanent residents and refugees. It is estimated that each card will cost R56, which poses a serious affordability challenge in a society where per capita income is still quiet low for many of the citizens. That notwithstanding, this project requires final Cabinet approval to proceed, which is urgent because it seems to have lost momentum in government.

We shall seek further Cabinet approval with regard to the e passport, after which shall publish the tender to ensure that the new e passport is delivered as from 2007.

During the Budget Vote presentation in June, we had promised certain quick wins to be achieved during this financial year.

Accordingly, we are happy to report that significant progress is being made with regard to all these matters: that is,

• we are in the process to establish the ICS Consoles at the five Refugee Reception Offices as promised, and the Information Systems Strategic Review workshop shall also review this matter to ensure that we are able, within this financial year, to fulfil this Quick-win;
• we have thus far installed 27 new PCs at Lindela, which are all fully loaded with the Population Register and other programmes, all linked to the national mainframe enabling that we register all illegal immigrants, verify whether people are second-time offenders and above all else, whether there are no South Africans being unfairly treated such as has been the case with many South Africans;
• we have developed a national plan to begin to roll out, within this financial year, and "at selected hospitals", the online registration of births and deaths. Thus far, we launched the programme in three KwaZulu-Natal hospitals, supported by UNICEF, and are set to roll it out to 58 other hospitals throughout the country. We have consulted the Health MECs and Departments and, together with the hospitals, are working on security measures for our equipment and are we wish to assure the Portfolio Committee that the system itself is secure from those that may wish to hack it or break into it either to access our population register or to print fraudulent birth or death certificates;
• the tender to develop 67 mobile units fully fitted with ICSC has been awarded, with the expectation that at least 10 may be ready by December this year. The Minister has asked Civic Services to table a comprehensive strategic plan for the deployment, maintenance and security of the mobile units;
• whilst it is not yet linked to the fingerprints system, we have begun to issue unique and permanent ID numbers, as has currently happened with the children recently issued with their birth certificates.

With approximately half-a-billion rand budget, we are reviewing how much of our spending through procurement is going to broad-based BEE, especially to empower women and youth.

We are confident, Chairperson and Honourable Members, that we are making steady progress towards meeting both our films and publications as well as our mammoth information systems challenges.

Thank you.