Note to editors: The following speech was delivered in Parliament today by the DA’s Shadow Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, Archibold Figlan MP, during the Budget Vote on Home Affairs.
Honourable Chairperson,
This department is one of the most important in our government. It touches the hearts and minds of every single South African and is often used as an indication of just how well our government works. If Home Affairs fails, our country fails.
For this reason, everything we do in this department must bring change to the lives of our people and make a positive contribution to the development of all South Africans and the country as a whole.
The smart ID rollout programme, as my colleague has already mentioned, has made some sterling progress, but the rate of delivery is still too slow. At the current rollout rate, it is likely to take more than ten years to ensure that we convert from the old ID book to the new smart ID card. We must, therefore, implement new measures to achieve this target sooner than planned. We welcome the introduction of banks in assisting with this rollout but there are still too few banks that can entertain applications.
The long queues at Home Affairs offices are also a massive problem for people who are unable to spend an entire day away from work, just to apply for an ID document.
Many offices around the country stop accepting people from 15:30. We appeal to the Minister to take careful note of the declining quality standards at many offices countrywide. In particular, the Edenvale Office in Johannesburg, the Bellville office in Cape Town, and the Umgeni Road office in Durban are the main culprits.
Honourable speaker, for many years now, we have raised the concern around the registration of new-born children. Thousands of children who live in our country are still not properly registered and years later when they attempt to register, it becomes very difficult to prove that they are South African citizens.
Many parents do not take this responsibility seriously. Only 75% of the children born in our country are registered within 30 days. This is a scary statistic. We must do more to ensure that every single child that is born in this country, is properly registered. It does not help that registration facilities at hospitals are inoperable and under staffed. This exacerbates the problem and must receive urgent attention from the Minister.
Honourable Chairperson, another area of concern is the massive backlog that we have in the permanent resident application process.
Recently, the Director-General announced that about 4 600 applications are no longer on the system. What has happened to those applications? Why have they simply disappeared and what steps are being taken to inform every applicant to re-apply?
Many applicants have already been waiting for many years for the adjudication process to be completed, and now we hear that their applications have somehow been deleted. I invite the Honourable Minister to inform this house of the details in this regard, in her final reply.
Honourable Chairperson, in conclusion, I wish to extend our appreciation to all the staff and senior management officials in the department for their contribution.
We must recognise that hundreds of home affairs officials work tirelessly to keep this department operational but that so much more could be done to support and improve the delivery of services to the people of our country.