Report of the
Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs on the strategic plan and Budget Vote 4 of
the Department of Home Affairs and its entities, dated 23 March 2010
The
Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs having met with the Department of Home
Affairs, Government Printing Works (GPW), Electoral Commission (EC), Film and
Publication Board (FPB) reports as follows:
1. Introduction
The Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs plays an oversight role on the
Ministry of Home Affairs, Department of Home Affairs, and its Entities. The
Committee scrutinized the Strategic Plans and Budgets of the Department of Home
Affairs and the GPW on the 9th of March 2010 and scrutinised the Strategic
Plans and Budgets of the EC and the FPB on the 16th of March 2010 in
order to establish whether funds that are allocated to the Department and its
Entities are aligned to the respective strategic plan documents.
2. Department
of Home Affairs
The aim of the Department
of Home Affairs is to efficiently safeguard identity and status, regulate
migration to ensure security, promote development and fulfill its international
obligations.
The activities
of the Department are organized in the following programmes:
Programme 1:
Administration
Programme 2:
Services to Citizens
Programme 3:
Immigration Services
Programme 4:
Transfers to Agencies
Both Civic and
Immigration functions impact on the identity and security of citizens and other
residents and these are core functions of the Department of Home Affairs. They
have a critical role in ensuring the security and integrity of the state and
the society.
2.1. Programme 1:
Administration
The purpose of
this programme is the overall management of the Department and centralized
support services. Expenditure on this programme increased from R643.8 million in
2006/07 to R1.4 billion in 2010/11 in order to refurbish the Department’s
offices and information systems.
Five out of six
Deputy Directors-General (DDG) positions had been filled and 15 new offices were
opened and refurbished since January 2009.
Receipting
solution had been rolled out to the top 88 sites and asset management system
implemented.
2.2. Programme 2:
Services to Citizens
The purpose of
this programme is to provide a secure, efficient and accessible service and
documents for citizens and lawful residents. Expenditure increased from R968.3
million in 2006/07 to R1.4 billion in 2010/11. The expenditure in the
provincial Civic Services sub-programme accounted for a significant portion.
Late
Registration of Birth (LRB) has been a challenge. Some of the children are not
born at the hospitals and these children are not registered with the Department
of Home Affairs. The Department wants to do away with LRB. A birth certificate
should be the only entry point into the National Population Register (NPR).
In order to
curb corruption, the Department had introduced the live capture of photos into
passports. It will be rolled out to all regional and district offices and the live
capture of photos into Identity Documents will be piloted in 5 offices.
2.3. Programme 3:
Immigration Services
The purpose of
this programme is to facilitate and regulate the secure movement of people into
and out of the
APP is a system
where passengers are processed in their countries before they depart for
Government is
in the process of establishing a Border Management Agency (BMA), and the
Department of Home Affairs will contribute to the establishment of BMA by
seconding one fulltime official.
2.4. Programme 4:
Transfers to Agencies
The purpose of
this programme is to provide financial support to the FPB, the GPW and the EC.
The large increase in the allocation to the Electoral Commission between 2008/09
and 2010/11 is driven by the elections cycle.
Transfers to
Agencies will be broken as follows:
|
Agency |
2010/11 |
|
Government
Printing Works (GPW) |
R97
228 million |
|
Electoral
Commission (EC) |
R1 430
503 billion |
|
Film
and Publication Board (FPB) |
R55
217 million |
|
TOTAL |
R1 582 953 billion |
3. Budget
of the Department of Home Affairs
The Department
of Home Affairs received an allocation of R5 919 584 billion for the 2010/11
financial year compared to an amount of R5 263.8 allocated in 2009/10. The
largest portion of the Department’s budget allocation went to the transfers to agencies
programme, administration and services to citizens respectively. The Electoral
Commission received an additional allocation of R150 million in 2010/11 to prepare
for the 2011 local government elections.
The allocation
has been broken into down into the following programmes:
|
Programme |
2010/11 |
|
Administration |
R1 470 926
billion |
|
Services to
Citizens |
R1 446 011
billion |
|
Immigration
Services |
R1 219 694
billion |
|
Transfers to
Agencies |
R1 582 953
billion |
|
TOTAL |
R5 719 584 billion |
The budget for
the 2010/11 financial year is shaped by the government’s new framework of
outcomes and associated targets.
Challenges
faced by the Department in 2009/10 are as follows:
·
Ensuring that all South Africans
have birth certificates and Identity Documents (IDs);
·
Separation of economic migrants
from genuine asylum seekers;
·
Outdated document management
system;
·
Controls, people and systems
needed to achieve a clean audit;
·
Adherence to set turnaround times
for key enabling documents.
The Department’s request for funds to implement the following projects
was not approved by the National Treasury:
·
Electronic Document Management
System (EDMS);
·
Passport Project;
·
Children fingerprints;
·
National Immigration Information
(Refugee Affairs);
·
Port Control;
·
Port Control – Advanced Passenger
Processing (APP);
·
Who Am I Online (WAIO);
·
Information Services
Infrastructure;
·
Data Quality Management;
·
·
Outsourced Security Services;
·
Accelerated Birth Registration;
·
HANIS Database Increase;
·
Smart ID Card.
The following
agencies/entities fall within the Department of Home Affairs:
Government Printing Works
Government
Printing Works provides security printing services to the South African
government and SADC governments. It was established as a trading entity in the
Department of Home Affairs but in September 2008 was converted into a
government component. The conversion allowed GPW to begin operating on sound
business principles.
GPW has three
strategic thrusts over the medium term:
·
Technological upgrade;
·
A new production facility;
·
An effective marketing and
business strategy.
The following
critical equipment is needed to be procured as part of the asset replacement
programme:
·
Web offset printing presses;
·
Web-feb Kraft press;
·
Shed based laser imaging system;
·
Three unit sheet-fed offset
printing press;
·
Digital printing systems;
·
Polycarbonate material
manufacturing line;
·
Upgrade to the Unomatic passport
booklet assembly line.
GPW generates
revenue mainly from printing identity documents, forms, examination papers and
passports. Revenue is expected to increase over the MTEF period from R289.7
million to R861.7 million. The transfers from the Department of Home Affairs to
GPW only service bank charges. A further R93.7 million in 2010/11 is for the
new production facility.
Currently GPW
does not have an internal audit committee but it is in the process of being
established.
GPW stated that
there was no delay or backlog in the printing of the passports. The machine
prints approximately 24, 000 passports per day. The delay is at the Department
of Home Affairs. Once the data package is downloaded into its server by the
Department of Home Affairs, the turnaround from GPW is 24 hours to personalize
the information. GPW can personalize the data into 8,000 passports per day. The
delay in the production of Identity Documents is not the responsibility of the
GPW but that of the Department of Home Affairs. The Department of Home Affairs
has not paid GPW since the production of the new passports and this will have
an impact in the operations of GPW.
The Chief
Executive Officer also stated that GPW is ready to print the Smart ID Card, as
soon as the Department of Home Affairs
is ready to implement.
The budget
allocation from the Department is R97 228 m for the 2010/11 financial year.
Electoral Commission
The Chairperson
of the Electoral Commission, Dr Brigalia Bam stated that the Electoral
Commission is preparing for the 2011 local government elections which must take
place between 2nd of March and 2 June 2011. The Commission will also
amend the Municipal Electoral law which would seek to resolve the conflicts
that occur at the voting stations.
The Strategic
Objectives of the Electoral Commission are as follows:
·
To interact nationally and internationally with relevant bodies in order
to strengthen electoral democracy and position the Commission as a continuously
improving world-class organisation;
·
To develop, implement and monitor strategy and policy to ensure the
effective and efficient functioning of the Commission;
·
To optimize voter registration opportunities to achieve an accurate,
comprehensive and up-to-date national voters’ roll;
·
To efficiently and effectively facilitate the participation of political
parties and candidates in the electoral process on a continuous basis;
·
To provide electoral operational systems and infrastructure to support
the delivery of credible elections in accordance with election timeframes;
·
To plan and implement strategies to educate, inform and coordinate
programme delivery of civic and democracy education to civil society through
partnerships, research and knowledge management on a continuous basis;
·
To ensure professional and enabling business processes and corporate
services to support the core business of the Electoral Commission.
The Chief
Electoral Officer, Adv T Tlakula, went through the strategic objectives. She
indicated that the mission of the EC has been revised.
These are some
of the highlights of the presentation from the EC:
·
The Electoral Commission had
managed elections for SRCs at universities, taxi associations and other
institutions in South Africa and was also involved in international work in
Kenya and Sudan;
·
The EC was conducting research on
electronic voting and are developing a fraud prevention strategy;
·
During June and July 2010, no
bi-elections would be held because law enforcement agencies would be busy with
the 2010 FIFA World Cup;
·
For 2011 local government
elections, the EC would train and deploy mediators;
·
The staff turnover had been very
low at the EC;
·
There is currently a court case
with POPCRU because there are no special votes for police officers during local
elections;
·
The EC intended to have 23 599
273 registered voters on the voters’ roll by the end of the financial year and
checked this against the National Population Register of the Department of Home
Affairs. There would be 20 500 voting stations secured and well equipped;
·
The Municipal Electoral Officers
(MEOs) will be appointed for the elections by the EC. MEOs are nominated by the municipalities and
they are senior officials of the municipalities.
The budget allocation
for the EC for 2010/11 is R1 453 514 090 and the allocation has been done
according to the strategic objectives as well as provincial allocation.
Film and Publication Board
Mandate of the FPB
·
Regulate the creation, production, possession, broadcasting and
distribution of films, interactive computer games and certain publications;
·
Making use of children in pornography punishable;
·
Providing consumer advice to enable adults to make informed viewing,
reading and gaming choices,
·
Protecting children from exposure to disturbing and harmful materials and
from premature exposure to adult experiences.
Strategic objectives of the FPB
are as follows:
·
Enhance, integrate and implement
a constitutionally sound regulatory framework;
·
Develop and maintain organizational
capacity and capability;
·
Form and maintain national and
international partnerships, and co-ordinate initiatives that support the
business of the FPB;
·
Position the FPB as a viable and
credible, professionally run organization.
Key priorities for 2010/11:
·
Establishing of the 2010 Special
Project office to oversee outreach, awareness and positioning of the FPB during
the FIFA World Cup and beyond;
·
Ensuring compliance by
distributors, categorize distributors according to their needs and service;
·
Ensuring appointment of
representatives and credible examiners;
·
Improving classification
turnaround times (fast-track method to be put in place);
·
Strengthening relations with the FPB
Stakeholders; and where possible enter into Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs);
·
Improving of handling of records
in the organization, using electronic records and data storage platforms
available;
·
Ensuring proper segmentation and
targeting of the FPB clients;
·
Repositioning the FPB in the eyes
of the public;
·
Ensuring greater participation of
members of the public in the formulation of guidelines;
·
Greater focus on customer care
and resolution of queries from distributors and other clients;
·
Increasing outreach and awareness
using new media technologies.
Challenges of the FPB
•
The strategy is ambitious and
required a high level of skills, commitment and dedication from staff of the FPB;
•
Limited skills, abilities and
commitment of staff to execute implementation;
•
Limited resources available – no
budget increase expected from National Treasury for the next two to three
years;
•
Lack of management of the
organizational review process;
•
Limited knowledge of project
management by the FPB;
•
Alignment of strategy responsibilities as closely as possible to existing
skills and job requirements;
•
Lack of capacity and resources
for the 2010 Project Office;
•
Lack of availability of the SAPS
to assist in joint raids during the 2010 FIFA World Cup;
•
Absence of an industry body to
represent industry at large (small and bigger players);
•
Absence of an effective and
secure labeling system;
•
Absence of a diverse and
differentiated classification model responsible to the multiplicity of
distribution platforms;
•
Piracy/ distribution rights/
parallel importing;
•
Lack of transformation industry –
need for introduction of BEE codes;
•
Lack of facilitation industry
negotiations on fair industry rights regularly.
The FPB received a budget allocation of R55, 217m for the 2010/11
financial year. The FPB also generates revenue through classification fees,
registration, and annual renewal registration.
4. The
following were raised by the Committee:
·
During the presentation, there
was no mention of the implementation of the Smart ID Card;
·
During the Committee’s oversight
to the
·
The Department of Home Affairs
should properly flag its offices that are not performing well;
·
The Committee wanted to ascertain
the amount spent on the consultants for the 2009/10 financial year and the
allocations for consultancy for the 2010/11 financial year;
·
The Committee requested the plan
of the Department of Home Affairs on how it intend to address human trafficking
and prostitution in South Africa during the 2010 FIFA World Cup;
·
There are frustrations with
regards to the Refugee Reception Centers around the country; The Committee
wanted to ascertain whether the forensic audit report on the Smart ID Card was
made available to the Minister of Home Affairs by the State Information
Technology Agency (SITA);
·
The Committee expressed a concern
that the GPW’s mandate is to print security documents for the state and the
government does not provide it with sufficient funding to fulfill its mandate;
·
The Department of Home Affairs
has not paid GPW for the printing of the new passport;
·
The Electoral Commission should
look at the possibility of electronic voting;
·
There is a challenge of ensuring
that MEOs remained objective and independent;
·
There is a perception that ballot
papers sometime goes missing;
·
The FPB logo is not copyright
protected and can easily be used;
·
There is the debate on the
responsibility of parents to ensure that children do not watch harmful
materials.
5. Conclusion
The Committee
thanked the Department of Home Affairs and its entities on their presentations
of the Strategic plans and budgets. The Committee also wished the
Director-General well on his retirement and stated that he had laid a
foundation for the turnaround of the Department of Home Affairs.
The Committee
recommends that budget vote 4 be passed.
Report to be considered.
__________________________ ________________
B A Martins Date
Chairperson of PC on Home
Affairs