Report of the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs on Oversight Visit to Independent Electoral Commission and Government Printing Works in Tshwane, date 14 June 2005:
The Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs, having undertaken an oversight visit to Tshwane on 14 June 2005, reports as follows: A. Introduction
The Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs undertook a visit to Tshwane on 14 June 2005. The aim of the committee was to get the briefing by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) on state of preparedness for the forthcoming local government elections. The committee also visited Government Printing Works (GPW) to understand the factory’s operational matters, security of official documents and processing systems.
Lastly, the report will also report briefly on the surprise visit by the committee to home affairs offices to check the manner in which people are issued with passports, identity documents (IDs), birth and death certificates and others.
B. Procedures The committee secretary coordinated the plans of the committee on its visit to Tshwane. He arranged appointments with the IEC and GPW to meet with the committee, first by sending correspondences to the two institutions clearly stipulating the purpose of the meeting and the dates and the number of delegates for the meeting.
At IEC the meeting was scheduled to begin at 9h00 and 14h00 at GPW, on June 14 2005. Co-ordinators at IEC and GPW assisted with the arrangements of venue for the meeting at their respective premises.
Delegation for the Tshwane visit was comprised of the following six persons: Mr P Chauke, Chairperson: ANC; Mr W Skhosana: ANC; Ms S Kalyan: DA; Ms I Mars: IFP; Mr R Mankge: Committee Secretary and Ms L Martins: Committee Assistant. However some committee members withdrew from the visit in response to a call by the President, Mr Thabo Mbeki, to attend a Parliamentary sitting he had called for on 14 June 2005.
C. Findings
This section presents the findings of the study done by the committee on the Independent Electoral Commission, Government Printing Works and Department of Home Affairs.
Independent Electoral Commission
During the committee’s visit to the IEC the chairperson of the commission, Dr Bam, voiced her appreciation particularly on the role played by Parliament with its provincial visits and encouraging people to apply for IDs. The committee was also highly commended on the support they give the Department of Home Affairs (DHA). Dr Bam argued that irrespective of the myriad of challenges they are faced with such as the new demarcations and systems of running elections, they have gained skills and experience to take the coming elections forward.
A strong team of managers and commissioners had accompanied and supported Dr Bam during her meeting with the committee. She introduced her team each with an assigned role or an activity to present before the committee. The IEC team was comprised of the following: Commissioner Mpumlwana – presenting International activities of the IEC; Commissioner Van der Merwe – handling general overview on the preparations for the forthcoming local government elections; Advocate Tlakula, CEO – dealing with administrative arrangements for the forthcoming local government elections and lastly presentation on Delimitation and Voter Registration by Mr Norman du Plessis. International activities of the IEC
The IEC is playing a leading role on elections not only in South Africa but also in other parts of Africa. Although the country is still young in the game of multi-party democracy, international worlds already are convinced that the country can offer more to them, argued the chairperson of the commission.
Commissioner Mpumlwana outlined the role played by the IEC at international level,
that they:
offer technical support
observe elections
participate as partners in electoral projects
The work of the commission on the international level is funded by organizations that invite it to assist. Despite that, Commissioner Mpumlwana argues that as partners IEC also augments.
The commission has already been involved in countries like Namibia, Lesotho, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Sudan on electoral projects. The commission is in a partnership with the African Union (AU), and they are trying to establish and electoral unit to build democracy in Africa. In Sudan the electoral commission is doing research on elections and electoral systems and conflict management.
With the Southern African Development Community’s (SADC) electoral forum, IEC intends to enhance its support on the forum and help create a common vision on elections. The commission’s partnership with the Association of Electoral Forum in Africa has already shown the fruits for success whereby the commission is currently helping the DRC electoral Commission with capacity building.
Overview on the preparations for elections
Commissioner van der Merwe said that IEC has established electoral units in municipalities. The units work as municipal support staff, which the IEC pays for their salaries and the projects run. Municipal support staffs are under the management of IEC.
Municipal electoral units are established do deal with the brain drain, which was happening within the IEC. Commissioner, van der Merwe, asserted that in the past the commission used to hire part-time workers during elections but lost them after they gained experience.
Running the elections is not a smooth sailing. The commission is faced with a number of challenges, which include:
creating and maintaining a voter’s roll
re-demarcation of new voting stations
how to distribute ballot papers to the districts
financial constraints and management of elections Administrative arrangements
Advocate Tlakula presented the committee with the election plans. Amongst other things, Tlakula reported that the planning was based on the premise that the elections were scheduled for 07 December 2005, while registration begins on 03 September.
About two hundred million is budgeted for this financial year, for elections. The commission has negotiated with the landlords to put polling stations in their premises. For example, the commissioner mentioned that they spoke with school governing bodies (SGBs) about using the schools. However there are problems in areas where there is no proper infrastructure like in the informal settlements. As the results, the commission would resort to use of tents, sometimes blocking streets. Delimitation and voter registration
Mr du Plessis mentioned that there is improvement in access to voting facilities – queues and numbers and distances. But differences would still be seen in other places, between Easter Cape and Johannesburg, for example, due to walking distances. Municipal Demarcation Board (MDB) has redrawn the boundaries to accommodate peoples’ movement and the voting districts were also cut. The movement of people calls for creation of new voting districts.
Questions and answers Below is the list of questions asked by the committee with the responses provided by the by the commission:
Is the budget allocation enough
In response, the chairperson of the commission asserted that the commission would manage to run the forthcoming elections with the money the have. She indicated that they, however, have a valued added tax (VAT) challenge. They are currently discussing with the national treasury to give them 80 million rands in tax return.
On the other hand, it appeared that the commission doesn’t have enough money for outreach programmes and publicity, especially for poor rural communities, which don’t have access to televisions.
How much is used for voter education
The commissioners indicated that 35 million rands are used for voter education. They are also managing with the financial assistance provided by provincial departments. Examples include Limpopo province, which has adopted a policy to support IEC.
How would people be educated about the elections
Responding to the question of voter education, the commission indicated that they have approved an organogram for coordinators in provinces to deal with ongoing voter education. The project aims to infuse democracy in schools. The project has been running for four years in conjunction with the department of education covering the sample of 600 schools in the country.
Currently the commission is negotiating with the department of education to incorporate the project of voter education in the school syllabus. It has already been piloted in the Further Education and Training (FET) band. The aim is to bring democracy in education.
In addition the commission reported that, there is a stakeholder management project, which runs to include community leaders, churches, unions, schools and universities. The objective of this initiative is to organize communities and educate them about balloting and how to vote.
How were target areas for voter registration identified
Targeted areas explain areas affected by boundary changes and low registrations. The commission goes back to the identified houses affected by the changes and asks people to re-register for elections. However sometimes people are not found at home, in this case the commission argued that pamphlets are left at the house to inform dwellers that they have to register again.
The voter registration is often met with challenges, which include:
lack of proper addresses in informal settlements
ongoing migration of people
lack of systems to trace how many people move from their municipalities.
How is the maintenance of voters’ dealt with – problems of people passing on and names still on the voters’ roll.
The commission is working with the department of home affairs to prevent the system of ghost voters. Only the living people should vote. The commission reported that 1.8 million dead people were removed from the voter’s roll since 1998. The problem is that elements of resurrection occurs but the commission works closely with the home affairs department to make sure that they don’t get names of dead people on the voter’s roll, said Mr du Plessis.
Do people get IDs for elections
With regard to the question of ID, the commission indicated in response that there is an increasing awareness campaigns to encourage people to apply for IDs. The problem is that there is no system in place to track applications done. To show this, it appears that people apply for IDs in the Eastern Cape and move to Cape Town before they receive them, and when they get there they apply again. The Government Printing Works
Mr Tom Moyane, as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), heads the Government Printing Works. In brief, Mr Moyane reported that the factory does printing of Identity Documents, passports and government gazettes and others.
During the meeting at the factory, Mr Moyane was supported by the following staff members: his Personal Assistant, Ms M Mopelong; Mr S Quit: Admin Manager; Mr M Ntimba: Finance Manager; Mr J Engelbrecht: Operations Manager; Mr J Rossouw: Human Resources Manager; Mr A Mosoma: Factory Manager; Mr T Nyida: Assistant Factory Manager; Mr T Khumalo: Assistant Factory Manager; MS A Pretorious: Assistant Director, Finance; Ms S Badenhorts: Assistant Director, Stationery; Mr Z Montjane: Assistant Director, Publications.
Some staff members presented the work of the factory before the committee as outlined below, which was followed by a tour of the factory.
Operations
The Operations Manager, Mr Engelbrecht, stated that the factory is divided into different functions which include printing, publications, stationery and raw materials, administration and support.
Printing
With regard to printing, it was mentioned that the process includes putting printing plates to machines to get actual printing done. After the materials are printed the factory also do binding. Apart from the binding of the reports and government gazettes the factory does what they call security binding, which includes IDs and passports.
Publications
Mr Engelbrecht argued that their Pretoria and Cape Town offices do publications whereby provincial gazettes are produced. The GPW offices in other provinces do publishing of statistical reports.
Stationery and raw materials
The GPW purchases ball pens, papers and other materials and store them in different stores. The factory has also what they call a face value store used for safe keeping of ID or passport face photos and other important documents.
Admin and support
The admin and support directorate is responsible for contract printing, finance and human resources divisions. Mr Engelbrech stated that security is important part of the GPW. There are twenty-four security guards at the factory seven days a week.
Challenges
Mr Moyane mentioned that they are faced with a number of challenges at the GPW. They include the following:
Training and skill development
The CEO indicated that their work is very sophisticated and hence they need resources to meet staff training needs and skills development. The factory has a staff compliment of more than six hundred workers.
Inappropriate facility
The facility the factory is operating from is a problem in itself. The Mr Moyane argued that the facility was the prison in the past, which is now turned into government printing. It is not adequate for the printing work and security of the material produced.
Factory tour
The committee was given a chance to embark on a tour of the factory to observe and have first hand experience of the work done.
Different sections of the factory were visited. The visit started with the origination section, which captures every information and documents sent to the factory. Sixty-one people were found working in this section. There is also a proof reading section, which makes sure that the information captured to be printed is correct.
Another section seen was the photo reproduction dealing with photo materials. The photo reproduction section has a staff compliment of three. The factory has editors who do editing work and making sure that the notices go to the right places.
From the photo reproduction, the committee proceeded to the manufacturing section. This section is highly secure. Everyone entering the ID and passport manufacturing section is searched when going in and out. It was realized that no bags are allowed inside the section.
The committee was how the IDs are made and the security features on the ID paper, which could only be seen by use of magnifying class. The papers used for making IDs are carefully counted and recorded by machine to prevent fraudulent printing of the document. Where the machine fails counting can be done manually.
Committee’s response and concerns
The chairperson assured the GPW that the committee supports their desire to move out of the prison building to a proper facility designed for printing works. The committee was also satisfied about the way funds are run in the factory. The factory was however advised to put some tighter debt collection measures to get back the money owed to them by different state departments.
The committee had however, on the other hand, raised some concerns, which are explained below.
Safety of papers
The committee uncovered loopholes with regard to the security of ID papers and other official documents. The CEO mentioned that the paper moves between the State Information Technology Agency (SITA) and the Department of Home Affairs before it reaches the GPW for printing of IDs. The committee’s view was that in the middle of this process some of the papers end up in the hands of criminal who produce fraudulent IDs. The question is who between the three is to blame; GPW said it is clean and suspected that SITA is the one which poses serious security risk on the paper.
Old code of arms
While IDs and other official documents have new code of arms, passports are still left behind in the past – reflecting the old apartheid code of arms. Nevertheless, Mr Moyane maintained that the South African passport is the best in the world.
Department of Home Affairs Before the committee reached the Government Printing works, they decided to pay a surprise visit to the regional department of home affairs at corner Bosman and Pretorius, Pretoria. The committee moved quietly inside the department and joined queues as if they were coming to apply for official documents like any other person.
The committee discovered a number of problems at the department, and these are explained below.
Issues discovered The committee witnessed two things happening at the department of home affairs:
Nametags
The committee realized that most of the home affairs officials, including their seniors, were working without their nametags on them. Some of the officials were arrogant when asked about why they did not wear their nametags, perhaps because they did not know the importance of wearing them. Agencies
In the passport section it was found that there were agencies, which work to collect passports on behalf of other people. For example one man was found with a stack of passports and after been interrogated by the chairperson he claimed that he was collecting them on behalf of a particular family. The man further mentioned that he also work for the South African Football Association (SAFA) - collecting passports for players from the offices. However nothing wrong was found with the man as officials at the department also confirmed that he was known and confirmed that he is working for SAFA.
D. Committee recommendations
This section presents the committee recommendations to attempt to address the problems affecting the three institutions visited in Tshwane.
Concerning the IEC, the committee recommends that:
1. There is a need to put more money for the commission to fully meet its plans
2. There is a need to focus on voter education and inter-party relationships
3. The number of voters needs to be increased
4. Voting stations need to be put at walking distances to people
With regard to the Department of Home Affairs, the committee recommends that:
1. Officials should wear their name takes during work hours
Concerning the Government Printing works, the committee recommends that:
A joint meeting be held between the department of home affairs, GPW and Sita to discuss security issues
Transformation should happen and staff must reflect the countries population
The GPW should do away with the old code of arms on passports
The GPW needs to be moved to a suitable building
The GPW needs to collect money owed by departments