Chairperson, hon members, colleagues, Ministers, Chairperson of the Independent Electoral Commission, Dr Brigalia Bam; Chairperson of the Film and Publication Board, Thoko Mpumlwana; Chief Executive Officer of the Film and Publication Board, Yoliswa Makhasi; Deputy Commissioner of the South African Revenue Service, Ivan Pillay; Mr Michael Katz, the Acting Chief Executive Officer of the Government Printing Works, Joe Engelbrecht, members of the stakeholder forums from across the country, members of the Department of Home Affairs and fellow South Africans, may I take this opportunity to inform the House that Deputy Minister Fatima Chohan is not present today because she represents the National Assembly on the Judicial Services Commission, which is in session at the moment.
This Budget Vote comes against the backdrop of the commemoration of the 18th anniversary of the assassination of one of the finest sons and heroes of our land, Chris Hani, and the forthcoming local government elections scheduled for 18 May, as well as the centenary celebrations of the birth of the ANC on 8 January 2012.
It is in this context that we must, as a nation, pause and reflect on how the South Africa of 1912 looked, in order for us to appreciate the progress achieved thus far. Then, power was exclusively in the hands of the white minority who regarded the black majority as units of cheap labour rather than as citizens. South Africa was fractured and divided by racial discrimination, class oppression, with black women suffering triple oppression: race, class and gender. There was no common sense of nationhood amongst all people at that time. Of course, in 1913, the Land Act brought massive land dispossession to the majority. Most of us did not have the right to vote until 1994.
Of course, the struggle for liberation went on for all those decades in various forms, including the armed struggle, until 1990, with the commencement of negotiations. Chris Hani, who had dedicated his entire life to the struggle for liberation, said upon his return to South Africa after three decades in exile, and I quote
I have lived with death most of my life. I want to live in a free South Africa, even if I have to lay down my life for it.
Unfortunately, he did indeed lay down his life at the hand of an assassin, as did young Solomon Mahlangu, who was executed by the apartheid regime in the same month, April.
We also recall President Nelson Mandela's speech on 13 April 1993, when he said, and I quote:
Tonight I am reaching out to every single South African, black and white, from the very depths of my being. A white man, full of prejudice and hate, came to our country and committed a deed so foul that the whole nation now teeters on the brink of disaster. A white woman, of Afrikaner origin, risked her life so that we may know, and bring to justice, this assassin. The cold-blooded murder of Chris Hani has sent shock waves throughout the country and the world. Our grief and anger is tearing us apart. What has happened is a national tragedy that has touched millions of people, across the political and colour divide. This tragedy was a watershed moment in the history of our country. A moment in which, as a nation, black and white, we could have succumbed to the objectives of those forces which sought to turn the clock of history backwards. Or, as Nelson Mandela said, a moment in which we could use our pain, our grief and outrage to move forward to what is the only lasting solution for our country: an elected government of the people, by the people and for the people.
In May 2011, South Africa will witness her fourth democratic local government elections, in which our people will exercise, once again, their right to vote. We carry the constitutional mandate to support the work of the Independent Electoral Commission to deliver credible, free and fair elections. In this regard, I am happy to announce that we have disbursed the required funds to the IEC to enable it to deliver on its mandate.
As we move towards the local government elections, we should remember that this was achieved because many South Africans were ready to lay down their lives for this freedom. Therefore, every citizen, including the youth, should go out and vote. Those elected and officials currently in government, including us in this House, should never forget that governments are elected by the people to serve the people honestly and in the best possible way.
The Constitution entrusts the department with a dual mandate. In this regard, we are the custodians of the identity of all South African citizens, critical to which is the issuing of birth, marriage and death certificates, identity documents and passports, citizenship, and naturalisation and permanent residence certificates. The full spectrum of identity management goes beyond the mere issuing of secure documents. It encompasses the safe maintenance and archiving of biometric and demographic records of citizens and persons who have been permitted to reside in South Africa.
Our second mandate deals with the effective, secure and humane management of immigration. It is important to recall that the South African nation is a product of many streams of history and culture, representing the origins, dispersal and reintegration of humanity over hundreds of thousands of years. Immigration will therefore continue to play a part in the foreseeable future.
We have dedicated ourselves to the ideals of the founders of the ANC. And, in the context of consolidating this common identity and citizenship, we have undertaken steps to ensure that every South African over the age of 16 has an ID, and that every baby born is issued with a birth certificate within 30 days of delivery. This we have done through the launch in March 2010 of the National Population Registration campaign.
The success of the campaign necessarily lies in the understanding that this is a government by the people, for the people, and that we had to forge partnerships between ourselves and the people to succeed. In pursuance thereof, we have mobilised our people in various communities into stakeholder forums, thus giving expression to the clause in the Freedom Charter: "The people shall govern." In this regard, we have formed 254 stakeholder forums representing 90% of the municipalities throughout the country. They comprise leaders and members of communities, councils, the Department of Home Affairs and other related government departments.
I am happy to welcome among us today representatives of these stakeholder forums. They serve in stakeholder forums across the country freely, without any expectation of financial and personal reward. For them, it is a national duty. We owe it to them to succeed. [Applause.]
We have not established these forums to add to the existing layers of bureaucracy in the department. The forums improve our quality of service delivery by identifying needs in the communities, by doing oversight of offices and by resolving problems innovatively. Where gaps and challenges have been identified, the department is responding positively by implementing the requisite measures. These measures include the deployment of more staff in existing offices - this is something that has also come from the stakeholder forums - and mobile offices, as well as opening new offices, especially in the rural areas.
In our campaign to ensure that all babies receive birth certificates and that those who are 16 years and older receive identity documents, the following progress has been registered: 499 957 births were registered within 30 days; 456 675 births were registered within 30 days to one year; only 130 284 births were registered after one year and only 190 091 births were registered after 16 years. Therefore we have surpassed our target of 70% of children being registered by their first birthday, and we have also reduced dramatically children being registered only after turning 16.
We have also issued 1 091 511 identity documents to 16-year-olds and above. These are the IDs issued for the first time, and this is 257 000 more than in the previous financial year.
In support of this campaign, 189 hospitals and health facilities nationally have been linked to the Department of Home Affairs so that mothers can get their birth certificates before they leave hospital. [Applause.]
We also have, in addition, 141 hospitals which are serviced by Home Affairs officials. They go there every day and collect the forms for the registration and processing of the children born in those hospitals. We would like to take this opportunity to reiterate our national call for parents to register their babies within 30 days of birth and to acquire IDs at 16 years old.
Realising that the objectives of this campaign had to be transmitted as widely as possible, in the past year we were also supported through innovative means of communication. These included the Premier Soccer League, PSL, in the match between Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates; Lotto; Motswako; Pampers; and Generations. We thank all of them for their support. [Applause.]
The government asked us to cost the production of all the services we render, including, amongst other things, IDs, passports and birth and death certificates, in preparation for the introduction of new tariffs, which were gazetted in January this year. We would like to emphasise that the government provides each South African citizen with the first ID, birth certificate and death certificate free of charge. But, of course, if you want a second or third copy, then you would have to pay for those documents.
This year, we processed 1 353 256 IDs for people who applied for second or third IDs. As we speak, we are sitting with almost half a million - that is, 494 367 - uncollected IDs in various offices, and at the head office we have 266 785 IDs. In total, we have more than 750 000, almost a million, uncollected IDs. These are the IDs of people who applied for second IDs and not for the first ID. The reissuing of these increases the possibility of duplicate IDs and identity theft by unscrupulous elements. We did a survey in Pretoria and we found that most people who had not collected their IDs, had applied for new IDs when they had merely misplaced their IDs. Once they found their IDs, they did not bother to go and collect the ID they had applied for. So I would like to ask the nation to make sure they take responsibility for and value and protect their IDs.
I must also emphasise that we implemented the tariff increases after running an ID campaign for more than a year. We also made sure that everyone who wanted to vote had the opportunity to register before the tariffs were increased. These tariffs are only the costs for the production of the documents.
However, I must say that in the event of natural disasters such as floods and fire, which may lead to the destruction of all these documents, whether IDs or birth, marriage or death certificates, the documents will be replaced free of charge. [Applause.] We also just want to apologise in that maybe our communication was not sufficient before the new tariffs came into being.
We have achieved what we set out to achieve during 2010. Since a lot has been said on 2010, I will not dwell on it; suffice to say that we were able to bring 2 387 524 visitors safely and expeditiously into our country. Of course, 828 841 of those came from our own continent.
Through the Advanced Passenger Processing system and the airline liaison officers, we were able to prevent undesirable elements from entering South Africa during that period. But that system did not cease after the World Cup. It remains in South Africa. We use it now, so it is of assistance to the country as we speak.
Although we have made great strides in achieving our objectives in terms of civic services, there is still a lot to be achieved, and we will continue to consolidate our work in this area. This financial year, 2011-12, we are prioritising immigration. Why are we doing this? We are doing this because it is important, again, to recall, as Oliver Tambo said when talking about our beautiful land, that South Africa is a,
Varied land of snowcapped mountain peaks, of deserts and subtropical greenery covering vast mineral resources. Its warm seas to the east and cold ones to the west contain also large animal and mineral resources.
But more importantly, its people, their -
Varied cultures which are continuously mingling and interacting to their mutual enrichment, exhibit, despite their conditions, a great love for life and a sensitive joy in the creative and humane endeavours of the peoples of the world, without exception.
So, immigration will continue to provide us with this opportunity to ensure this continuous mingling and mutual enrichment in our nation.
As part of our government's new growth path, we will work with other departments over the next three years, but especially the departments in the economic sector, to proactively attract critical skills, whilst still producing our own, in addition to investors and tourists from abroad. These critically skilled people will include, among others, civil, chemical, electrical and mechanical engineers and agronomists. We will also be attracting a lot of suitably qualified artisans from different areas, as well as scientists, senior project managers, environmental experts, ICT specialists, economic planners and many others.
Immigration must, however, be effectively managed to protect our sovereignty and secure our nation against the threat of transnational crime and terrorism. In this regard, we will train our officials to be responsive and vigilant with respect to the needs of clients, as well as the security concerns of our country. We will also be rationalising our ports of entry to move resources to where they can be optimally used. We have also centralised the issuing of permits and cleared the backlog.
We remain committed to honouring our international obligations to protect those who legitimately seek respite from persecution in line with international and domestic laws. Ours is to determine and protect the status of asylum seekers by providing them with the relevant documents and permits. We are reviewing and overhauling our asylum seeker management process to ensure that there is adequate capacity and expertise at all levels of the process.
We will also enhance our National Immigration Information System, NIIS, which is used to register asylum seekers and refugees, while reducing the backlog at the adjudication and review/appeal levels.
We have adopted a regional approach to mixed migration with a view to curbing the abuse of the asylum-seeker process and ensuring that the issue receives the attention of the regional organisation SADC, the Southern African Development Community. We will therefore, amongst other things, strengthen controls at our borders and ports of entry in co-operation with our neighbours.
In the previous financial year, the department undertook a comprehensive review of the legislation governing its work so that we could ensure its relevance. We are pleased to report today that the South African Citizenship Amendment Bill and the Births and Deaths Registration Amendment Bill have been passed by both Houses of Parliament, and have been signed into law. The department is currently engaged in finalising the necessary regulations. Amendments to the Refugees Act and the Immigration Act are currently in the parliamentary process.
We are also pleased to report that progress has been made regarding the transformation of the department, including the financial management. In 2010 we received a qualified audit with one qualification relating to asset management, a marked improvement from previous years. We will continue to work towards an unqualified audit in 2011-12, moving towards a clean audit in 2012-13.
Now that the "Who Am I Online" contract issues have been resolved, we will, in collaboration with Sars, the Government Printing Works and the Department of Finance, make sure that we roll out the live capture for IDs and passports, which will greatly enhance efficiency, security and service delivery; develop and implement an integrated system of both the immigration and civic systems; and completely overhaul our National Population Register.
We have also introduced an operational model which aligns the department with the three tiers of government. We now have provincial, regional and local offices. In addition, and to ensure that citizens receive services wherever they may be, we are also using mobile offices and temporary service points.
As part of ensuring access and quality service delivery to our clients, we refurbished 30 offices last year in line with our new corporate model, as some of the members in this House have witnessed at our Barrack Street office this afternoon.
We have also implemented a queue management system in 13 of our offices. In addition, all our officials are now under the directive to wear their name tags during working hours. Similarly, we have increased accessibility for the public to the department's top management by placing their contact details, including mobile and office numbers and e-mail addresses, on posters in all our offices and on the departmental website. Please call any of these numbers should you not be satisfied with the service you receive at our offices. We are also now open to the public from 07:30 to 16:30 from Monday to Friday, and from 08:30 to 12:30 on Saturdays.
We have succeeded in meeting our target to fill all management posts, with a few exceptions. We have also increased the number of officials tasked, with servicing hospitals and mobile offices in particular. Going forward, we are prioritising the filling of frontline posts.
Last year, we committed to piloting the smart card. In this regard, we are pleased to inform the House that this has been done. The Government Printing Works, or GPW, has produced the Crew Member Certificate, which is used internationally by our pilots and crew members. This has laid a solid foundation for piloting the ID smart card - because it's a similar kind of concept - in this financial year, with the roll-out in the 2012-13 financial year.
The budget of the department includes funding for the Film and Publication Board, FPB. We are pleased that the FPB will finalise its turnaround strategy this year, aimed at delivering a more efficient and functional organisation with simpler and more convenient business processes for distributors and clients.
We also remain committed to uprooting fraud, working with all the other departments in our cluster and also with other agencies. At this time, I would like to express my appreciation to those hard-working and honest Home Affairs officials and managers for the sterling work they have done in the past year, led by their Director-General Mkuseli Apleni. [Applause.]
Before I conclude, I would like to remind all citizens that South Africa's third population count will take place from 10 October to 31 October. Government urges all citizens to stand up and be counted. There will be 120 000 enumerators from our communities. The results of the census, obviously, will guide the allocation of resources to improve access to basic services.
We must indeed recommit ourselves to achieving the ideals of freedom, democracy and justice and to delivering excellent services to our people. A sacrifice such as that of Chris Hani deserves no less.
In conclusion, we extend our appreciation to the chairperson of the Portfolio Committee, Ma'm Maggie - I see even my old chair is here - and to all the members of the portfolio committee for their assistance and support during the year, and, hopefully, during the coming year as well. We request this House to support the Budget Vote, with the support of my former Deputy Minister. I thank you. [Applause.]