The department has drafted a strategy and action plan that will be rolled out with short, medium and long- term intervention. The department pronounced to the public the War on Queues campaign as part of its plans to ensure that, notwithstanding the high volumes experienced amidst inadequate physical infrastructure, unstable systems and lack of resources, our clients are served at a shortest possible time.
The action plan put in place includes the following critical components: Firstly, all locations of offices are being reviewed. In other words, we are reviewing whether home affairs offices are situated in proper areas. This is because sometimes we build an office only to find that it is serving very few people and there is another office we have built which is overflowing. We are now doing a mapping exercise to check the demographics and see where we place our offices.
Secondly, we are in engagement with State Information Technology Agency, SITA, which in most times is our culprit on this matter, and
other role players to continue with the stabilisation of the information technology, IT, system. Quite often, Home Affairs has long queues because of system failure caused by broadband which SITA is responsible for. We have been in constant discussion with them to find a solution to this problem.
Thirdly, to address the issue of walk-in clients and inadequate resources, which I have already mentioned, there is a very good practice which I have seen here with one of the community radio stations in Elsies River. Everyday they phone ... I just forgot the name of the station. Gosh! I am so frustrated. But that station is doing a good thing which we want to copy.
Every morning they phone the Home Affairs director and ask him because Home Affairs offices would have informed him on their statuses by 08h00 in the morning. If an office is already full, the radio station will broadcast it and advise on which office to go to. They do that three times a day; in the morning, at lunch time and after four so that even when you are sitting in your car listening, you will know which office is empty and which one is overburdened.
The issue of overburdening of offices happens all the time. In Gauteng, immediately after the reopening of schools in June, the
offices were overflowing because school kids started to realise they are about to write exams and they want identity documents, IDs. They just wake up and go to offices. Therefore, that morning we have to choose offices and give them allowance for overtime to do that work. We do that all the time.
We also want to revisit staff working hours. Part of the overflowing offices is because the offices work for only five days. If we have to work over weekend then it is regarded as overtime. We are discussing with Labour whether we can have people who specifically work on weekends just like in hospitals where some doctors and nurses work during the day and others work during the night. We are also going to try that.
We have implemented the following measures: Five offices were identified and are used as pilot for the War on Queues and we are trying to find out if we can modernise all the offices in the country.
Lastly, our smart ID card is so difficult to forge or defraud that the banks in this country actually want everyone who has a bank account to have a smart ID card. For this reason, they are prepared and they are working with us. We already have bank branches where
you don't have to go and queue in home affairs but you can apply at a particular bank online sitting at home and the bank will call you to come and take biometrics. Once they this has been done, the information is sent to Home Affairs' back office to be checked. If everything is perfect then we send the information to government printers for your ID or passport to be printed.
You can take an ID or passport in this way. There are already people who do not stand in these queues but they just sit at home and do that online. Only 13 bank branches are doing that; 12 in Gauteng and one in the Western Cape. This year, after my budget speech, we are adding 29 more and next year by April we are adding 70 so that more people do not queue so as to reduce the lines in Home Affairs' offices for those who cannot apply online. Thank you. [Applause.]
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