Chairperson, I just want to remind you that I have two and a half minutes from my opening speech.
Thank you very much for being here and thank you to those who participated in the debate, both on Health and Home Affairs. I think the three hours have re-educated me on health. Thank you very much. I am even tempted to comment, but I will not. I will just give some of my remaining minutes to the Minister of Health.
Hon Plaatjie asked a number of questions, some of which were answered by the Deputy Minister. I just want to talk about how the advance passenger processing works. The airline checks in people and sends the information to the airline liaison person. The airline liaison person then puts the information on the system. Our system is linked to the police, to Interpol and also to our own stop list. So if there is a hit on any of the lists, we then inform the airline and we advise that the person does not board the plane. Of course, it is only advice. If they allow that person to board the plane, we inform them that we will not accept that person into the country. They will then have to take him or her back.
In short, that is how it works. By the time the passengers arrive, we already know that most of them have been cleared. If there are any of them who have boarded and are not cleared, we know who to stop.
We think that will facilitate not only the movement of people but also security because we are linked to all the other agencies as well. That is thus how it works.
He also talked about the Who Am I Online project. The system that is running at O R Tambo District Municipality that will be rolled out, is part of the Who am I Online project. If you recall, it was said that we will start with those that involve 2010. That is what we have prioritised. The other aspects of the Who Am I Online project will happen after 2010. At the moment it is really about the ports of entry. I think that I have answered the questions that remained after the Deputy Minister replied.
I think it was hon Marais who spoke about immigration, migrants and permits. I said in my initial input that we are reviewing the whole immigration policy. Part of that would be the permitting system. Where there is a problem with permitting, we will address it.
What I also want to say is that we should look at migrants in two ways. There are those who are asylumseekers. If we give them refugee status, they are allowed to stay in South Africa and work as long as they have a problem where they came from. Then there are those who say that they are asylumseekers but they are actually economic migrants.
We want to review our policy and separate it because if somebody comes from Nigeria, most of them would not actually be true asylumseekers. They will be mostly economic migrants. Once they have come through the asylumseeking route, we have to go through that route, finish it and tell them that they are not asylumseekers. If there is an economic migrants' side, we might be able to look at it.
You also talked about access. It is true that our footprint in Home Affairs does not mirror the demographics of the country. Most of the offices of Home Affairs are located where the apartheid offices were in the cities. Therefore, we are opening new offices, using centres and using everything we can to expand our footprint.
Last year we expanded it by 21 offices. This year we are planning 10. In addition, we will have the ones that will be made available by provinces and all of you. The previous Minister had started using mobile units, precisely because she was trying to make sure that rural areas are reached. We are still using those mobile units. We have 117 of those mobile units.
We have recognised that they are ordinary trucks. They are not able to travel on very bad roads. Therefore, in addition, this year, we have added 25 Land Rover 4x4s which are really mobile offices. They can connect with Home Affairs and do everything that an office can do. We have added these 25 Land Rovers but we will be very happy if Western Cape or any province can also add to these mobile units so that we can reach the rural areas.
Lastly, I want to thank hon Rantho for the input. Most of it was really self-explanatory. Regarding your friendly advice, I just want to say that the government is looking at how to have a single border agency so that we can all work together. In fact, the IT system that I am talking about will also be of assistance once that agency is there because it is working together with Home Affairs, Sars and the police. We are aware of what you are talking about and we will try and do our best. We must take into account that we have a very long land and maritime border. Home Affairs is only responsible for ports of entry. The other security agencies are responsible for the borderline.
I think I will end there. My four and a half minutes will go to the Minister if he wants to use it. Thank you.