Home Affairs must get its house in order

The Department of Home Affairs has received a qualified audit for the second year in a row, according to its 2012/13 Annual Report. In 2011, the department achieved its first unqualified audit opinion in 16 years under the leadership of Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. The regression under Minister Naledi Pandor is a disappointment and requires immediate resolution. The DA will raise the qualified audit in today's scheduled Portfolio Committee meeting with the Department. We will request that a turnaround strategy be devised to deal with the matters raised by the Auditor-General (A-G). In his report the A-G stated that a "lack of adequate oversight" within the department lead to some of the following issues and the qualified audit opinion: • 75% targets not achieved; • Of the 12 drivers of internal control meant to determine the department's efficiency and effectiveness, four were "causing concern" and eight "required intervention"; • R4.2 million in irregular expenditure; • R301 million in unauthorised expenditure; and • R26 million in material losses and 7,099 lost assets written-off. This year's audit outcome undermines the progress, success, and perceived turning point of 2011's first unqualified audit. Minister Pandor must roll up her sleeves and make sure that the department does not receive its third qualified audit next year.

Electoral Amendment Bill is unconstitutional!

The right of every citizen to vote is one of the foremost rights for which the struggle against apartheid was fought. It is a right which we believe is essential to uphold in its entirety. Section 19 of the Constitution ensures that all citizens have the right to vote in elections for any legislative body. Presently the Electoral Amendment Bill recently passed in Parliament restricts the rights of some citizens to vote only on the National Assembly ballot. This unfairly limits the ability of citizens to exercise their rights and as such this Bill in unconstitutional and should not have been supported. Firstly, South African citizens abroad under this Bill are restricted from voting on the ballot for provincial legislatures. This is an unacceptable restriction on the rights accorded to them by the Constitution as citizens of the Republic. During Committee deliberations the DA argument was not accepted on the grounds that it was ‘impractical’ despite the fact that we offered very practical solutions to allow citizens abroad to register and vote on the provincial ballot. Secondly, the current system and the Electoral Amendment Bill restrict the ability of South African citizens who reside inside the Republic from fully exercising their right to vote. While the Bill now provides for a special vote for citizens who will be absent from their voting district on the day of elections, it still restricts citizens from casting their vote from outside their province. The DA believes that there should be no restraints whatsoever on the ability of citizens to exercise their right to vote, including voting from outside ones province. The DA thus believes that this is a major restriction on every citizens’ Constitutional rights In order to ensure that these rights were upheld in legislation, the DA’s James Selfe introduced a Private Members Bill which amongst other things aimed to ensure that all citizens, abroad and within the Republic could vote in both the National Assembly and provincial legislature elections, regardless of provincial boundaries. This Bill was rejected by the Committee. Undeterred, the DA attempted to uphold the rights of all South African’s by proposing amendments in Committee on the current Electoral Amendment Bill to ensure that all citizens can fully exercise their right to vote. Again these amendments were rejected. The DA will now continue to fight in the courts to ensure that South Africa’s elections are free, fair and allow all citizens full access to voting. During the Committee process, the Commission itself conceded that this restriction on the rights of citizens is a problem, but described the issue as “minute”. As such, the ANC chose to ignore what everyone confesses is indeed a problem. The Bill in its current form will not pass the test of Constitutional muster The IEC and the ANC argue that with the low numbers of people who vote abroad and outside of their home provinces such a problem is not material. This is simply not true. More importantly, this belies the very intention on which the Constitution was founded. It undermines the lives lost in the struggle to ensure that the right to vote was never again restricted. The DA will not stand back and allow our democracy to be weakened by this Bill. Therefore, the DA could not support this Bill at it is unconstitutional and unacceptable in our Democracy.