South Africa April 2005 |
|
| Refugee centres need to be revamped, (BuaNews, 2005-04-22):-Home Affairs Deputy Minister Malusi Gigaba says the country's refugee reception centres need to be managed better to be in a position to deliver government's mandate. Mr. Gigaba made the statement during a visit to the Cape Town Refugee Reception Centre as part of his Imbizo in the Western Cape province. Among services provided at the centre is the processing of applications by foreigners to become legally recognised refugees and/or asylum seekers in South Africa. "The refugee affairs have been very badly handled and managed in the past. We are now employing a new director, paying new attention, developing new capacity as we launched the new Immigration Branch. "We have also put aside a lot of resources to be able to respond to the challenges," he said. Speaking to BuaNews following his interaction with members of staff at the centre here, the deputy minister said the greatest problem was insufficient capacity to do the work. There was also insufficient ability to respond to the demands, which means inability for the home affairs department to optimise output. "If you go to all our centres they are all in bad.... very bad conditions. They are unsafe, unhygienic and not conducive to the professional work that we have to do. "You may be dealing with foreigners but they are also people....above else refugee matters are matters of human rights and we have to respond professionally and humanely to the needs of these people. " But some of these things are being addressed by the [home affairs] department but we are going to raise them again," he said. Both his department and the Public Works Department were engaged in talks to find alternative means to create much conducive working environment for the staff. Mr. Gigaba added that the staff was unable to give feedback to the department's head office regarding problems they were encountering in the process of implementing related policies and programmes. "I think they are blocked by red-tape because the person who works on the ground reports to the supervisor and the supervisor decides that this [problem] is not important...they strike it off and yet you find that the matter is very important. The Deputy Minister is scheduled to visit Mitchell's Plain, Khayelitsha, Khayamandi Multipurpose Centre and Nagenoeg Farm in Stellebosch where he will address farmers and farm labourers and and out identity documents. | |
South African Migration Project (SAMP) - Queen's University - http://www.queensu.ca/samp |