Hon Chairperson, hon Minister, colleagues, officials of the department, I would like to start by first congratulating our new chairperson, Maggie Maunye, on her election. I think she is doing very well as chairperson. I know our previous chairperson also did very well.
I would like to express a word of thanks to the hon Minister, the director- general and all the honest officials of the Department of the Home Affairs, those who are trying their utmost to turn things around and to deliver good services to the public.
In my limited time, I will only deal with two issues. Hon Minister, during your speech today you spent one sentence on the Gijima issue. You said that this issue had been resolved. I am not too sure that that is the case. Hon Minister, would you agree with me that R2 billion is a lot of money? That is the extent to which this contract escalated within two years. I smell a rat. Something is very wrong. How is it possible that a project can allegedly escalate from R2,1 billion to R4,5 billion in two years? On 31 March this year, in a media release, Minister, you said: "Gijima was also not willing to go to court." It makes one think: Why not? Why won't they go to court if they are in the clear? If you look at the specific contract itself: Part B of that contract deals with the real hardware, the real stuff: computers, monitors, screens - those kinds of things. That escalated from R1,2 billion to R1,4 billion, an increase of 16,67%.
But then we come to Part A: the software, the smoke and mirrors part, which escalated by more than 100%. Part C: the so-called middleware and software - more smoke and mirrors - escalated from R200 million to R1,6 billion, an increase of 700%. No way! I smell a rat. We should feel very uncomfortable dealing further with a company while a forensic audit is still in progress with regard to this whole process. Taxpayers deserve way better - something here is wrong.
The second issue I would like to deal with is our passport and immigration issue. During a recent visit to the United Kingdom I was told by the British authorities that they have identified O R Tambo International Airport as one of the six sources worldwide of immigration offences to the UK. Their Home Office believes that South African passports in particular are being targeted for abuse by nationals of third countries. A particularly acute problem for the UK is the flow of Zimbabwean asylumseekers through O R Tambo, mostly using genuine South African passports that have been fraudulently obtained.
It is estimated that there are 30 to 40 cases of this per week, every week. What is the result? We now have a very much more secure passport, which will cost the taxpayer R400 - which is an increase of 100% - but this does not mean that we no longer need very expensive visas to visit most of the countries that still do not recognise and accept what we are basically putting forward.
I know good work has been done, hon Minister, but these are only two issues that are still, as far as I am concerned, not resolved and we will have to take them further. Thank you.