With your permission, hon Chairperson, it seems to be a double-barrelled question.
With regard to the first part, I should say that last week I spent more than six hours with the Department of Home Affairs. It was a valuable six hours where they explained to me the work that they are doing. I was hugely impressed with the commitment, the patriotism and the loyalty that the majority of the civil servants that work for the Department of Home Affairs displayed, not only during the
presentations that they put forward to me but in me just observing some of the work that they are doing.
One of the things that they have done is to set up an anticorruption unit - or do they call it a countercorruption unit - within the Department of Home Affairs. It is dedicated to investigating corruption. It has been able to identify a number of officials - and there are not many - who participate in corrupt activities. It's an ongoing process. I asked them what they do with them. They discipline them, and if the disciplinary process results in them being dismissed, so be it. I am told that some are even charged.
So, I found that to be quite refreshing coming from a government department, where a government department demonstrated that, indeed within its own environment, it is seeking to deal with corruption; recognising that there is corruption. The Minister informed me about another grouping of workers or civil servants that was also going to be dealt with because they had been found to be perpetuating or practising corrupt activities.
With regard to the care that we demonstrate to asylum seekers, we have been informed by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees that we are among the very few countries that have a very clear policy that
we put in place, because they have found as they examined us, that indeed when it comes to giving due care to those who seek asylum and who seek refuge in our country, we do subscribe and actually implement the precepts that are put out at international level.
We should do that because when people leave their countries because their countries are at war or involved in war, or there is strife, once they present themselves at our borders in South Africa, we are duty-bound, in terms of international conventions, to receive them, to accept them and to start processing them. The processing is an arduous process but we have set up offices that do precisely that. There are reception centres that are aimed at doing precisely that.
Our policy internationally is to promote human rights. We promote human rights and we seek to work with various countries in the world, various organisations and indeed, various leaders as well. From time to time we do engage various leaders if there are challenges and problems that have a negative impact on human rights. It may well be that some may want us to stand on rooftops, on the top of mountains and shout and scream, and condemn certain individuals or leaders. We exercise engagement; we exercise an approach of discussing matters with a whole variety of leaders, with a view of having an impact and an influence. This is an approach
which we believe works best. It is tried and tested, and we have seen quite a lot of success that is taking place on the continent.
The continent is on the move with regard to the observance of human rights and practising democracy, and this is an Africa that is developing and that is moving forward. Some people may like it; some people may not like it, but Africa is moving forward. Thank you very much. [Applause.]
Question 2: