Madam Speaker, the DA welcomes the Refugee Amendment Bill which was passed by the committee recently. The two major amendments are: firstly, the creation of the position of the refugee status determination officer at any refugee reception office or any other place designated by the DG. The Refugee Appeal Board will consists of as many people as the DG considers necessary. The chairperson and one other member must be legally qualified.
Secondly, the ID documents given to refugees and asylum seekers will be similar to South African ID documents. The last three figures of the barcode will reflect their status. These are welcome moves and go a long way towards legalising refugees, as the Chairperson has mentioned.
Home Affairs has had a lot of negative publicity recently - probably because South Africa has signed a number of conventions allowing free movement across borders without preparing for the consequences. It has become obvious that this free movement has to be regulated. People must be documented, and that goes for our own people as well. Our borders are extremely porous and not only asylum seekers come through, but also people with bad intentions. We must realise that everyone must have some form of identity document - either from their home country or here.
Allow me to highlight some facts from the Auditor-General's report. The Auditor-General states that as at May 2006 there is a backlog of 97 097 refugee applications. We hope the new Bill will address this backlog.
The Auditor-General further has a problem with the money which is paid to service providers caring for foreigners. Since I have served in the area of social development I equate everything with the child support grant or old age pension. My problem is that service providers are paid R251 per day, which is more than a child support grant for a month. This is paid for each prohibited person up to a maximum of 3 250 people held in a facility.
If my maths serves me correctly, that equates to R7 530 per month per person and yet our own older people are expected to live on R940 per month. When I read this I was hoping that the figures were wrong but the Auditor- General does not make mistakes. Some prohibited persons stay for as long as 157 days. The reason given: "The unco-operative attitude of certain foreign missions". Forgive me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that a foreign mission is responsible to its host country. The second concern that the Auditor-General has is the cost of transport. From my personal experience - I come from a farming community - I have seen people being transported back to Mozambique but before the transport had returned, all the people were back again. Madam Speaker, something is very wrong.
The DA wishes the Director-General well in his turnaround process. He has a mammoth task. I thank you. [Applause.]