I welcome the opportunity to continue my dialogue with the
press as we begin a new year. The Department has already embarked
on the process of operating in terms of the required planning
framework, and our priorities have already become cluster
priorities. The allocation of funding for key projects that we
have obtained is a tangible outcome of our intense participation.
With regards to the Governance and Administration Cluster, the
Department is directly involved in the following key programmes:
* HANIS incorporating the smart card facility
* The re-writing of the National Population Register
* The upgrading of the Movement Control System
* The rationalisation of ports of entry
* Equitable distribution of offices and progress with regards to
the finalisation of the Immigration Bill.
The Home Affairs National Identification System (HANIS) is one of
the most ambitious IT programmes underway in the country. It is
destined to change the face of governance as well as public
service delivery, civic life and business. Foremost is the impact
that the introduction of the smart card will have on social
benefits.
The Department of Home Affairs has been working very closely with
a number of other departments in the arena of smart cards and
e-governance. The envisaged uses of the smart ID card will offer
state of the art technology and utility to the citizenry and also
enable South Africa to leapfrog most of the world's technology
competitors. The smart ID card will be the new face of government
services, reinforcing the Batho Pele principles that we subscribe
to. It will enhance government services by making them more
efficient and bringing them closer to citizens. It is also
envisaged that the card will eventually be used by a number of
private organisations such as banks, insurance companies, medical
aid schemes and many more to combat fraud.
We intend to make the smart card available for the financial year
2002/2003. This process will be accomplished by an extensive
education campaign. Plans and priorities for HANIS and the smart
card for 2002 - 2004 are the following:
* On February 2002 the HANIS Contractor, the Marpless Consortium,
is scheduled to make a formal and official hand-over of the
system to the Department in what is called, in System Development
Life Cycle (SDLC) terms, the Basic System Commissioning;
commercial verification; back record conversion of the 40 million
fingerprints; procurement of the smart card supply; and issuance
of smart ID cards to citizens
I have appointed an Independent Commission, headed by Professor
Fink Haysom, to provide us with recommendations on how this
process should be better structured to avoid the possibility of
suspicion of corruption and to ensure maximum efficiency,
effectiveness and value for money.
Electronic Document System
Based on evaluations and analysis of the National Population
Register (NPR), it was concluded that the largest contributing
factor to the Department's service impact and business process
cost is the current largely manual Records and Archiving
environment which is utilised by all components of the Department
for verification, validation and information processing.
High-level calculations performed for the Chief Directorate:
Civic Services indicate that the budget impact caused by the
largely manual records environment could be between R200 million
and R400 million per annum. Since the records environment is the
foundation platform for the NPR and all additional Home Affairs
systems and processes, it was decided that an electronic document
management system should be addressed as a priority. Therefore, a
contract for this system was awarded in October 2001
The current implementation of this transversal, online records
system for the Department will provide the following:
* Replacement of the current microfilm and paper records
environment, which is utilising excessive floor space within all
the Home Affairs offices throughout the country
* A large reduction in the cost of business transactions to the
Department
* Expansive fraud and corruption reduction relating to all
systems and business processes of the Department
* Effective front-desk client service, thus improving the
responsiveness and public image of the Department
* Effective movement of the greater portion of the Department's
workload to the front-desk, which will relieve Head Office staff
members of the current backlog and workload and effectively
improve transaction turnaround times; effective and fast queries
and verifications, due to greatly improved system response times;
* Greatly reduced workload for all Home Affairs staff members,
permitting these staff members to attend to other important work;
* Information accuracy and integrity, due to the visual nature of
the system; simplification of all business processes, eg. The
issuing of unabridged birth, death and marriage certificates, as
well as citizen and permanent residence verification and
authentication; and
* A centralised and standardised records system, which will
remove the need for the numerous costly point solutions currently
utilised. This will reduce the overall cost impact to the
Department of Home Affairs for these systems.
The new Immigration Act
At the opening of Parliament last year, the President expressed
the intention that the new immigration legislation be finalised
by the end of last year. The time frame for the passing of the
Immigration Bill will depend on the Portfolio Committee on Home
Affairs, which, I am given to understand, has completed the first
reading of the Bill.
After five years of intense policy formulation, a new vision for
migration control in the 21st century has been developed for
South Africa, and is embodied in the Immigration Bill now before
Parliament. The Immigration Bill was tabled in the Home Affairs
Portfolio Committee in June 2001 and formally introduced on
August 23, being then reintroduced with one amendment on October
21, 2001. Technically, the Bill has been before the Committee
since June last year, even though its previous drafts were shared
with the Committee and the public alike for two years. It will
hopefully be enacted during the course of 2002, with the
launching of this Act accompanying an education campaign.
Movement Control System (MCS)
In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, the need for more
effective border control has become imperative in terms of
national security considerations. The current Movement Control
System does not comply with these requirements any longer, and
Cabinet has decided that upgrading of the MCS is necessary. An
inter-governmental committee is currently investigating this
issue. The launching of a new, on-time, online MCS will be
fast-tracked during the course of 2002 linking all our ports of
entry with Head Office and District offices and interdepartmental
programmes. Long term, we are exploring ways and means to
integrate the MCS within the HANIS project, and possibly issuing
smart cards to foreigners which will serve both as their entry
permit and their identification document and departure record.
Government Printing Works
During the course of this year, the Department will finalise the
restructuring of the Government Printing Works into a
fully-fledged private, but state owned enterprise, possibly with
a view to further privatisation. We will be putting in place
mechanisms to ensure that, by the end of 2002, this unit will be
run by a board and all its activities properly scrutinised to
ensure that before the end of the 2002/2003 financial year, the
Government Printing Works is no longer the responsibility of my
Department
Film and Publications Board
The urgency for legislation to combat cyber crime, especially
with regard to child pornography cannot be overemphasised, while
respecting fundamental liberties such as private content in
non-commercial sites and the margins of freedom of the Internet
industry. Inputs are still being gathered on this matter to
reconcile conflicting interests with a view to tabling
legislation in Parliament during the course of the year.
Training
To prepare ourselves for this eventful year, the year of
vuk'uzenzele! The Department will embark on extensive training
programmes for its entire staff to ensure that we are ready and
able to function at the required level of service excellence.
I thank you.