Before I discuss the Department of Home Affairs, I’d like to comment on the entities that fall under its custodianship. The Electoral Commission continues to be devoid of scandals and political intrigue that have become so common within so many of other entities within this government. It is run professionally and efficiently. As I stated last year, the IEC doesn’t allow itself to be bullied by any political party, irrespective of how big or small it may be. As a result it is respected all round both locally and internationally to an extent that other countries with longer and more established democracies than ours seek the advice of our own IEC. Again, I repeat, we can only puff our chests out with pride when talking about them. Thank you IEC for making South Africa proud.
The Film and Publications Board has done well in fulfilling its mandate, despite its strange shenanigans with The Spear painting, and has worked hard at improving on its past successes. The FPB has filled a number of key posts and as a result more than double the number of products have been classified in 2012/13 compared to 2011/12.
The Government Printing Works is truly a prime example of how an entity should operate. So much so that it has reached a point that it will be completely self-sufficient. This entity should provide other similar bodies an insight into its workings so they too can emulate what the GPW does so successfully.
Now let’s turn to the Department of Home Affairs; it is clear to me that the Department appears to be riding on its past successes with nothing new or exciting to report on this year. This may explain that despite the Minister being appointed as political head to this Department in October last year she has not once attended or formally met members of the Portfolio Committee.
The Minister has claimed that the Department supports the National Development Plan; but if this is the case how is she monitoring that the objectives within this plan are being met by the Department of Home Affairs?
Minister, your predecessor publically stated on radio that citizens would vote using the new smart cards in the General Elections next year. Is this deadline still going to happen or is this yet another target that will need to be moved? From what you tell us today you confirm that this deadline has indeed been postponed.
Since 2009 the Department has not published a list of scarce and critical skills despite it being required to do so in the Immigration Act. The Minister replied to a written question that the department intends to publish this list “in the near future”. Honourable Minister, when will this list of scarce and critical skills be published, considering that you are obliged to do so by law? This is an important component in ensuring that our economy grows. We need foreign skills, which are lacking locally, so that we can grow at an acceptable rate, transfer skills and compete globally.
A total of 6 217 of quota permits have been issued up to the 5 March 2013. The target set by the Department is 50 000. We clearly have a long way to go. It remains a mystery as to how this Department will reach its own targets and by when, particularly considering that this also meets the objectives listed in the National Development Plan.
To make this an even greater mystery, the Minister has indicated that the “Track and Trace system is not currently able to capture jobs and skills specific criteria of work permit applications”. How then will we know which skills we need to import?
The Department has spent an excessive R46 million on legal fees in the 2011/12 financial year. There appears to be no sign of this abating as the Department continues to be taken to court for administrative failures and errors and not respecting its own legislation. Court orders are routinely not respected.
Despite the courts being clear about the opening of Refugee Reception Centres, the Department simply ignores court orders and refuses to reopen them. The solution, we are told by the Department, is that Centres will be opened at land border posts. This plan appears to ignore air and sea ports.
The government cannot ignore the fact that South Africa is a safe haven for asylum seekers and refugees leaving conflict zones in search of a better, safer life. Instead of ignoring this issue, we must tackle it head on and take a human rights based approach to handling asylum seekers and refugees.
It appears the Department does not intend on doing this.
I’m interested in the Minister’s announcement of a Border Agency. A leaked document in my possession reveals that the Department has this extraordinary plan to introduce “Refugee Camps” where people previously called “asylum seekers” would instead be referred to as “refugees”. This means that it’s not just about detaining asylum seekers during the status determination process, but keeping refugees in camp facilities. The Refugee Act empowers the DG to establish Reception Offices. There is no empowering provision to establish Refugee Camps. The fact that a camp policy is much, much costlier than the current system, which requires minimal government support for asylum seekers or refugees, seems to have escaped the authors of this proposal. We need to know exactly what are your plans in this regard, Minister. Does this plan form part of the operations of this new Border Agency?
The Department not only ignores court orders but ignores the Public Protector too.
I have previously presented to this House the April 2012 Public Protector report entitled “Unconscionable Delay” which highlights abuse of power and administration. This straight-forward application remains pending despite the recommendations by the Public Protector that it be approved. Indeed, this is an indictment on the Department. Department officials simply refuse to grant this and many other applications because it appears that it is their egos not the law that is being respected.
As I said earlier, an efficient and effective department should not be spending this exorbitant amount on legal costs resulting from its own administrative failures and non-compliance to court orders. The Minister should look into this issue instead of trying to justify it.
Sadly it gets worse as this department and its officials sometimes forget the impact that it has on real people’s lives. Take for example a letter I received in March from someone in the Eastern Cape, without using the person’s name, I quote directly: “The person underlined here is an indigenous citizen of this country it is very painful to see her being humiliated and reduced to a nil dignity to be made less than a sub-human being humiliated and reduced by a public officer who refuses to issue an ID to her despite any declarations and police affidavits made by family members to ascertain her to be a born and bred in RSA – Colesburg.
She applied for an ID on 15 February 2012 but to date this has not yet been issued to her. In terms of section 20 of the Bill of Rights she is entitled to this document, she was born in 1964 in Colesburg. As we currently speak she does not have access to employment, health care, and a social relief grant, no community benefits, no rights of whatever nature are considered to her because she is treated as an outcast foreigner. She tried to make enquiries at the Colesburg Home Affairs Office where she is sent from pillar to post, ie, Colesburg to De Aar then up and down while she does not have money to travel up and down.”
Further down in this letter, it talking about a Home Affairs official as follows; “…it might happen to many people who opt to keep quiet about such officials who undermine people just because of their poor background and position. He thinks that he is above the law with his superiority complex and bullying others. Never on Earth can and ID application take such a long time.” Although there have been great improvements, there are still incidences of people being abused by DHA officials.
I advise the honourable Minister to read the regular feature in the Daily Sun called Home Affairs Horrors to understand the impact of poor service delivery by her department on ordinary South Africans.
The abuse doesn’t stop here. It is now reaching out into other areas. The recent high profile Guptagate saga is such an example. Clearly the government is working hard to create a perception that it did not condone this major breach of security and that it opposes this violation that took place at the end of April. At a media conference on Friday, all the Ministries, which include Home Affairs, stressed that “no executive authority was granted for the plane to land.”
If this is indeed the case, how is it that, according to Home Affairs itself, all 207 passengers and the 12 crew members on the plane in question had been processed through immigration? If permission had not been granted for this aircraft to land, how is it that officials were on hand to process all of these people at Waterkloof? Exactly how were they processed and how was all documentation for the non-South Africans coming into the country verified as true, accurate and not fake? According to Home Affairs, all passengers were indeed verified as correct and meeting all required legislation.
It appears that the DHA was very well prepared for the receipt of passengers from an aeroplane that government claims had not been granted permission to land at that base. The feeble attempts by the government in spinning the tall story is not holding water as the public won’t be fooled that easily.
If indeed permission had not been granted for this plane to land then it would be logical that resources from the DHA would not have been on hand to process passengers. According to the DHA, it was indeed present and successfully administered all passengers. Government speaks with a forked tongue as it makes claims on one side but actions demonstrate another.
The spin and the actual series of events simply do not add up. The Home Affairs Department needs to come out and admit that it looks after those close to the President and the ANC, even if it means posing a security risk to South Africa and breaking its laws as it did again in this case.
Honourable Minister, you owe South Africa an explanation. South Africans demand answers to all these questions and you, Minister must be held to account.
This leads me to other forms of corruption which continues to be rife within the Department. It extends from the lowest level right to the top. The Auditor General found that the Department had mismanaged procurement and contracts by awarding them incorrectly and not following tender procedures. The bottom-line is that little is being done to fight corruption in the Department as the results speak for themselves and that is that the level of corruption has not decreased.
I dream that we will soon reach the stage where South Africans will receive quick, efficient and effective service from the Home Affairs Department – when any experience with this Department will be a pleasant, courteous and corruption-free one.
This is a goal well worth working towards. We are here to assist in realizing this dream. Minister, tackling the issues I’ve mentioned today would go a long way to realising this.
