Monday 31 October 2011

Cuban Trainers for Home Affairs

MEDIA RELEASE
TRANSCRIPT COPY: SPEAKING NOTES FOR HOME AFFAIRS MINISTER DR NKOSAZANA DLAMINI ZUMA FOR BRIEFING TO MEDIA ON THE ARRIVAL OF CUBAN TRAINERS IN SOUTH AFRICA
Arcadia House, 909 Arcadia Street, Arcadia, Pretoria
Friday 14 October 2011
Comments by Minister of Home Affairs Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma
Good morning ladies and gentlemen of the media.  This is a very short briefing and is a follow up to the one we had last week when we introduced the programme of training and the pilot we are running of training the people we have recruited from the Defence Force as immigration officers.  It is a pilot we are running but the programme will unfold after that pilot.
We thought we should brief you that this programme has started – we have 30 South African trainers – these are professional trainers so there is just a short programme that is going to be done by the Cubans where they will be training them on some specific immigration issues. 
So these are professional trainers already but the training that the Cubans are doing is very specific to immigration.  I just wanted to clarify this because it is not that they are going to be trained to be trainers.  It is not like that.  They are professional trainers coming from parts of government and the private sector – they have been recruited across the board – and they are going to be part of our Learning Academy and they are now going to be working with the Cubans.  They are receiving their own training from the Cubans specifically on immigration issues and after this, they will together, train the 350 recruits that will be coming from the Defence Force who will be trained as immigration officers.  And this is the first lot that will be trained and this lot will be deployed at Oliver Tambo International Airport once they have been trained.  We will be reskilling the immigration officers who are currently at Oliver Tambo International Airport.
We thought this would be a good opportunity for you to see the trainers so you know this is not a phantom exercise – it is real and it is proceeding so the trainers are here – 30 of them – they have already started their work.  But they will be proceeding to the Northern Cape where the 350 Defence Force recruits will be trained before they come over to Oliver Tambo International Airport.  The reason we have gone to the Northern Cape is to get a big enough venue that is able to take 350 trainees as well as the trainers.  This is why we chose the Northern Cape – there is no other reason.
As I said this is a very short briefing and you are now welcome to ask questions.


Questions and Answers
Question                   Minister, which areas of immigration will you be focusing on – what are the gaps you want to address?
Answer                      (Minister Dlamini Zuma) Well, the recruits who are coming from the Defence Force have to be trained in all immigration relations issues.  They will not be trained on specific issues because they are not immigration officers.  They are going to be immigration officers after the training so they will be trained in everything related to immigration affairs.


Question                   Minister, what necessitated this programme?  What are the reasons behind the implementation of this programme?
Answer                      (Minister Dlamini Zuma) There are two main reasons why we decided to implement this training programme.  The first is that we are orientating our Department properly.  Our Department was for a long time seen as a service delivery Department although it is actually a security Department.  In many ways it forms the background of our security because it deals with who is in the country and who is in South Africa and how do people become South African, how do they come into and exit South Africa, what are they coming to South Africa to do and so on. 
So, this aspect was to some extent not included so our Department, as a whole is being orientated to both being a security Department with a service component.  This was the first challenge – we were not properly orientated – our mindset was not correct.  We were just seeing ourselves as a service delivery department and losing a very important component of what we are.  Now we are bringing this element so that we are indeed what we should be.  This was the first challenge.
                                    On the second challenge, we had identified gaps in the training that the immigration officers were getting and we also felt that we needed to have an international partner and we decided we are going to partner with Cuba because we think they have a very good programme from which we can benefit.  This is why some parts of the training will be done by the Cubans.  We have confidence in them – we have worked with them in difficult times – even before democracy so we want our training to be training that can withstand scrutiny from any quarter.
                                    So these were the two challenges we faced – the orientation of the Department as well as the gaps we had identified in terms of the training of immigration officers.
                                    This training is not just going to be for immigration officers.  This part is going to be for immigration officers but as I said last week, the people who are going to be coming out of Oliver Tambo International Airport will be receiving training. 
We have developed a course that is recognized by the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA) which will train a Home Affairs official.  We want people who work at Home Affairs to be conversant with what Home Affairs is about so when you say you are a Home Affairs official and you are asked about civics, immigration or refugee affairs, you are able to understand the Department as a whole especially because what we do is interlinked so it is important to have a rounded officer.  We will also then be able to deploy officials where they are required.
                                    So the Learning Academy will be broader than just about immigration training and training immigration officers.  It will be training new people coming into Home Affairs in any area while also reskilling some of the people who are currently in the Department.


Question                   Minister, how long will the course take?
Answer                      (Minister Dlamini Zuma) The course for the Defence Force recruits will be on 24 October and conclude on the 15 December 2011.
                                    You will understand these are people who are already in government since they are coming from the Defence Force.  They have some training, although it may not be specific to the Department of Home Affairs.  But because they are coming from government, they have some experience and are not coming in cold from the public.


Question                   Minister, is this course going to assist with the fight against corruption?
Answer                      (Minister Dlamini Zuma) Yes, but you also cannot fight corruption through one aspect.  Fighting corruption is much broader but yes, it will assist because it will help to train officials and make them understand what it means to be an immigration officer to take care of the security of the country. 
                                    And what it means even for the civics – when we retrain them it will help them to understand what it means when you sell a South African identity, what the security implications are – once people understand and internalise these issues they will begin to realise it is much more important to secure the country than to get the few rands that they get from the people who bribe them or who buy or documents.
                                    But there are also other measures – we are looking at revamping our IT – eventually budget permitting and in place of ideal conditions, we want to become a paperless department where all applications will be done online and no applications can be brought to the back offices, behind the scenes. 
We also have a unit that is looking at counter-corruption which is a counter-corruption unit that is looking at analysis, investigations, vetting and such related matters. 
Anti-corruption measures cannot be limited to only one thing – there is a whole basket of measures – but this will also assist.     
Issued by the Department of Home Affairs
Pretoria
0001
14 October 2011
http://www.dha.gov.za/Media%20Releases%201.html

Wednesday 12 October 2011

Mistakes in IDs


Is your ID free of mistakes?

June 23 2011 at 11:03pm


Comment on this story


Independent Newspapers

Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has confirmed that more than 36 000 people applied to have errors in their IDs fixed during the past year. Photo: Sizwe Ndingane



Cape Town - Over the past year, more than 36 000 applications were received from people seeking to correct mistakes in their IDs, Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said on Thursday.

“A total of 36 438 applications were received for the rectification of errors in identity documents since the beginning of the 2010/11 financial year,” she said in a written reply to a Parliamentary question.

The question, posed by Democratic Alliance MP Annette Lovemore, included a query on how many of the errors were the results of mistakes by Dlamini-Zuma's department.

“Statistics on errors made by the department are not available,” the minister replied, but noted that the majority of applications were requests from applicants to “rectify” their personal particulars in the National Population Register.

Responding to a separate question, she said all new identity documents would be issued in English only.

“When the security features of the identity document were reviewed, the department did consider the utilisation of the 11 official languages, as enshrined in the Constitution.

“It was, however, not practically possible to accommodate all official languages, and, therefore, it was decided to only issue identity documents in English,” Dlamini-Zuma said. - Sapa




http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/is-your-id-free-of-mistakes-1.1087916

Tuesday 11 October 2011

Xenophobia: Home Affairs Parliamentary Chairman apologises

Xenophobia: LHR hails MP’s apology

July 5 2011 at 08:52am
By POLITICAL BUREAU


Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) has welcomed ANC MP Maggie Maunye’s apology for remarks she made about foreigners in Parliament last week.

The organisation had called on Maunye to retract her statements publicly and assist in finding solutions “so that everyone within South Africa’s borders can enjoy their rights under the law”.

Maunye, who chairs the parliamentary oversight committee on home affairs, implied at a meeting of the committee on Wednesday that foreigners who settled here were soaking up resources. She questioned the use of human rights laws and the constitution to accommodate foreigners and suggested that they should be turned away, as migrants were by Spain.

“Really, this intake, for how long are we going to continue with this as South Africans? Is it not going to affect our resources, the economy of the country?” she said. “We’ve never enjoyed our freedom as South Africans. We got it in 1994 and we had floods and floods of refugees or undocumented people in the country and we always want to pretend it’s nothing like that.”

On Sunday, the ANC chief whip’s office said Maunye had “carefully reflected” on the comments, which might have been construed to be xenophobic, and had recognised “that her views, although not so intended, may have run counter to the letter and spirit of ANC policies”.

She realised her remarks might have been insensitive to the plight of many African foreigners who were here legitimately or because of hardships in their countries.

“Comrade Maunye deeply regrets the comments and unconditionally apologises for the harm they may have caused,” the statement read.

This was only after Lawyers for Human Rights said on Friday it was unacceptable that the chairwoman of the portfolio committee monitoring implementation of international human rights obligations could take such an uninformed and blatantly xenophobic view of contributions made by foreigners in building a modern South Africa.

“This is particularly discouraging considering these comments were made by a senior member of Parliament whose duty it is to uphold the law,” the group said in its statement.

“These unfortunate comments have come at a time of increased tension across Gauteng and memories of the 2008 violence where foreign nationals were targeted for violence and destruction of their property.”

The group said Maunye would do better to scrutinise mismanagement of the Department of Home Affairs’ asylum management directorate during the 11 years that the Refugees Act had been in place.

On Monday, the group said it was happy with the apology.

“It was very serious for a portfolio committee chair to make such xenophobic comments,” spokeswoman Kaajal Ramjathan-Keogh said. - Pretoria News

http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/xenophobia-lhr-hails-mp-s-apology-1.1093413

Sunday 9 October 2011

SA fails to attract highly skilled foreigners

Country fails to attract highly skilled foreigners

August 18 2011 at 09:00am



ANDISIWE MAKINANA

SOUTH Africa’s efforts to attract highly skilled foreign workers are floundering, with just 5 percent of the target being met.

Yesterday, the Department of Trade and Industry (dti) revealed in a presentation to Parliament that the Home Affairs Department had issued just 2 497 quota work permits between January 2010 and July this year, far behind the target of attracting 50 000 such workers each year. Quota work permits are issued to migrants with scarce and critical skills.

The dti was briefing a joint meeting of Parliament’s oversight committees on labour and home affairs, a day after the Home Affairs and Labour departments did the same.

The dti’s Pumla Ncapayi said the Department of Home Affairs determined a specific quota for work permits, and the number of quota permits issued for 2010/11 was 2 497, while 11 492 general work permits, 1 193 exceptional skills permits and 3 590 intra-company transfer permits had been issued.

The Department of Home Affairs’s strategic plan states that the objective is to move towards a “positive influx of scarce skills of around 50 000 migrants annually”.

DA MP Annette Lovemore said: “The numbers that have been given to us are very far from the target of 50 000.”

The dti’s Wilna Barnard quipped: “Maybe you can draw from that that we are maybe not such a destination of choice for highly skilled people.”

Barnard said her department, with Labour and Home Affairs, was working on how it could be made easy for skilled people to come to this country.

“If you look at the quota work permit, the uptake is very poor. If we really want to get to the 50 000 highly skilled people, we will have to look at that and make a plan on how we are going to do that.”

The Labour Department’s Sam Morotoba said data on the number of migrant workers in the country was unreliable.

http://www.iol.co.za/the-star/country-fails-to-attract-highly-skilled-foreigners-1.1120094

Friday 7 October 2011

Home Affairs celebrates unqualified audit

Minister cleans up Home Affairs

September 30 2011 at 10:30am
By GAYE DAVIS


INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPERS

Home Affairs Minister Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Director-General of Home Affairs Mkuseli Apleni celebrate the achievements of the Department's Turnaround strategy since her appointment in May 2009. Photo: Phill Magakoe



In a major turnaround, the Department of Home Affairs has received its first unqualified audit in 16 years – an achievement reflecting tight internal controls and senior staff appointments driven by minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

The department has for years been labelled as “chaotic” and poorly managed – a situation Dlamini-Zuma promised to address when she took over the portfolio in May, 2009.

She pledged during her budget vote in June of that year to tackle revenue management and other areas of concern repeatedly raised by the Auditor-General – and committed the department to a clean audit within two years.

At a briefing in Pretoria on Thursday, Dlamini-Zuma paid tribute to “the solid and hard work” by senior management staff who had “toiled night and day” to ensure the department met its obligations under the Public Finances Management Act and Treasury Regulations, in its “long walk” to a clean bill of financial health.

“The department has become a normal department, simultaneously achieving improved levels of service delivery,” she said. “We hope that all our officials, across the length and breadth of our country, are proud of this achievement and are inspired to do more… towards building a new Home Affairs. “We would like to express our unreserved appreciation for their support.”

She cautioned, however, that the clean audit for the 2010/11 financial year “poses a greater responsibility upon us all to maintain unqualified audit opinions in future (and to) do even better in years to come”.

Dlamini-Zuma singled out the leadership of director-general Mkuseli Apleni and chief financial officer Rudzani Rasikhinya, She also thanked the National Treasury, the department’s audit committee and the National Assembly’s home affairs oversight committee for “support and guidance”.

Dlamini-Zuma said on Thursday the clean audit had been achieved by implementing effective internal controls, including “weekly follow-ups” on issues raised by the A-G in his previous audit, especially in regard to managing finances, the supply chain, revenue, budgets and assets.



The DA congratulated the minister for “a significant achievement for a department that had been plagued with corruption, inefficiency and poor service to the public”.

The party’s home affairs spokesman, Mazisole Mnqasela, said, however, the department still “has a way to go” to providing efficient customer service. - Political Bureau




http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/minister-cleans-up-home-affairs-1.1148025

Thursday 6 October 2011

Ghanaian arrested for fake everything

Ghanaian arrested for fake everything

Jun 20, 2011 | VUSI XABA and FRANK MAPONYA
A Ghanaian has been arrested for allegedly setting up his own Department of Home Affairs.



He was taken into custody in an operation involving the police's crime intelligence unit and the Johannesburg metro police after being found in possession of Department of Home Affairs equipment.

He allegedly used it to produce fraudulent documents, including passports, visas, identity documents, driver's licences, marriage, birth and death certificates - and US dollars.

The 44-year-old, who was arrested in Yeoville, Johannesburg, on Friday, was expected to appear in the Johannesburg Magistrate's Court today.

Johannesburg police spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Lungelo Dlamini said the man would face charges of fraud, malicious damage to property, contravening the Counterfeit Act and bribery. He allegedly tried to pay the officers on the scene a R3000 bribe.

Other charges include possession of Home Affairs property and impersonating a department official.

Dlamini alleged that the man removed bar-codes and identity numbers from genuine identity books and pasted them into fraudulent ones.

Also found on his property were blank visas, security tapes for new passports, blank Lesotho passports, original Home Affairs documents, traffic department documents and rubber stamps for the Johannesburg and Germiston offices of Home Affairs.

Credit cards and driver's licences from countries that included Zambia, Angola, Brazil and Namibia were also found at the premises.

Dlamini said more people were likely to be arrested.
Three Home Affairs officials are expected to appear in the Lebowakgomo Magistrate's Court, near Polokwane, today on charges of fraud.

They were arrested in a joint operation by the Department of Home Affairs and the Hawks.

~ o O o ~

Wednesday 5 October 2011

Passports 1: Birth Certificates 0

Jack up birth certificate process

July 14 2011 at 09:00am



The Minister of Home Affairs has certainly done a good job when it comes to the issuing of passports.

It generally takes two weeks from application to get your passport. She must be given credit for turning this section of her department around.

Unfortunately, this is where efficiency stops.

I applied for an unabridged birth certificate for my son on January 24. The application process was quick and easy.

I was told, at the Randburg office, that the process would take eight weeks. It is now 24 weeks later and still nothing.

I personally visited the Randburg office four times between March and April – each time the clerk marked my application as urgent on the computer system.

On April 12, I met a senior employee called “Gift” who said he would take up my case with the head office in Pretoria.

He assured me that on April 19, my certificate would be ready for collection. Needless to say, nothing arrived.

On May 5, I called the head office call centre, and was given a reference number and told to call back in a week. I phoned again on June 10 and was given a new reference number. This time a woman named Pam said I could fetch the document in Randburg in three weeks.

I phoned again today, July 8, and the woman on the line said my application was marked as urgent and somebody worked on the file on June 6 according to the system, but nothing had been done. I was told to call back again in three weeks.

Dear Minister, your department’s inefficiency is wasting people’s time. May I remind you that time is money?

You need to pull the birth, marriages and death registration sections of your department in line, just as you have done with passports.



Cliff Jackson

Randburg

http://www.iol.co.za/the-star/jack-up-birth-certificate-process-1.1098784

Tuesday 4 October 2011

Hayibo! Home Affairs

****a piece of satire****
DIY Home Affairs man worked too hard to be mistaken for real thing


PRETORIA. The Ghanaian man arrested in Yeoville for setting up his own Department of Home Affairs office, complete with rubber stamps and men who stood outside and sold pens, says he is confident he will escape charges. “They have accused me of impersonating an official but I was awake and working when they busted me,” he said, “I am not sure how they see any resemblance.”

The man, who has yet to be named, was reportedly making good money by offering a faster and more user-friendly service than the one available through official channels, a task described by experts as ‘one in which it was impossible to fail’.

Senior officials at the real Department of Home Affairs say they have asked detectives interrogating the suspect to find out how he was able to process a passport within a day or produce a marriage certificate within a week.

“We suspect his claims are baseless,” said department spokesperson Edblow Sithole. “In our experience it takes a team of eight people a minimum of six months to process one residency application, so if he is churning out ten in a day then he is clearly a fake.

“Or he really enjoys his work – in which case we will give him a crash course on our procedures and formally ask him to run our office in Arcadia.”

Asked what training was required to work at Home Affairs, Sithole said it could be summed up by three simple rules. “When in charge, blame; when there’s work involved, delegate; and when spoken to, grunt and gesture.”

Sithole said it was no surprise that the arrested man came from Ghana. “That’s the problem with foreigners,” he said. “They do everything faster and cheaper and they end up making South Africans look bad.”

He added that he wouldn’t be surprised if the weekend’s arrest was the first of many. “We suspect the Ghanaians will seek to own the fake ID market in the same way Somalians found their niche with spaza shops, Nigerians as 419 scammers and South Africans as loafers.”

He said it was no surprise that so many South Africans were forced to live and work in England as it was one of the few countries where people were even lazier than here.

Meanwhile a lawyer for the detained man, Atticus Ndlovu, said he was doing his best to get the trial date moved forward.

“The Johannesburg Commercial Crimes Court has postponed proceedings until the 28th of June,” he confirmed. “But we are doing our best to get the matter switched to an earlier date.”

He added that he was also trying to get the matter moved to a ‘court’ run by a Rwandan magistrate from his bedroom in Observatory.

http://www.hayibo.com/diy-home-affairs-man-worked-too-hard-to-be-mistaken-real-thing/

Monday 3 October 2011

Residence Permit System in Chaos

SA residence permit system 'in chaos'

By: Amanda Visser2011-05-22 13:19
Pretoria - The department of home affairs' residence permit system is in total disarray.

That is the principal reason for an urgent application lodged against the department, its minister and its director general in the Western Cape High Court.

The application has been submitted by a Cape firm of attorneys, Eisenberg & Associates, two individuals and another immigration company, Visa One.

Gary Eisenberg from the firm of attorneys said the application was being submitted on behalf of 108 applicants who had all been waiting for longer than six months for their permanent residence permits to be processed.

In the court papers he said that applications had previously always been handled within six months. Now they simply disappeared or were never heard of again.

In February this year Eisenberg had also turned to the court because of delays with temporary residence permits.

That action had been instituted after it had come to light that 70% of more than 400 applications for temporary permits had vanished.

In a sworn statement Eisenberg said that the department appeared to be either unwilling or unable to do anything to trace the applications.

Some of the applications had been submitted five years ago. That was, he said, with respect, a travesty of justice and an embarrassment for South Africa.

In the court documents Eisenberg said that the struggle with permanent residence permits had been characterised by a total lack of support or even simple interest.

The court documents state that, from July 2010 to the present, innumerable email messages and other correspondence, as well as several telephone messages, had failed to elicit any reaction.

A total of 108 outstanding applications for permanent residence made up the court application.

The two individuals who have joined the court application are Yung-Li Yen from Taiwan and Fokelina Wijngaarden from Holland.

Yen is a fisherman who first came to South Africa in 1974. In October 1992 he married his South African bride, Narriman, from Cape Town.

The first of their three daughters was born in 1986. In 2007 he applied for his permanent residence permit after being advised by department staff to do so.

Wijngaarden and her life partner, Jan Koornneef, had opted for retirement in South Africa. Koornneef’s application (which was basically the same as hers) was processed six months after submission, but Wijngaarden has been waiting for two years.

The court papers ask the court to set a deadline for the processing of the outstanding applications.

The applicants claim an application unprocessed after six months is “unreasonably overdue”.

Eisenberg and the other applicants have asked for their application to be heard on June 28.

Leon Isaacson, chairperson of the Forum for Immigration Practitioners (Fipsa), told Sake24 that there had been a definite increase in overdue applications.

- Sake24
http://m.news24.com/fin24/Economy/SA-residence-permit-system-in-chaos-20110522

Sunday 2 October 2011

Home Affairs arrests corrupt officials

Home Affairs Arrests


Home Affairs officials arrested for fraud, corruption

Compiled by the Government Communication and Information System
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Pretoria - The Department of Home Affairs is cracking down on fraud and corruption within its ranks, arresting 12 of its employees in the past two weeks.


With the help of the Hawks, the department's Anti-Corruption Unit has arrested officials at the OR Tambo Airport, Durban, Grahamstown and Mount Frere, said department's director-general Mkuseli Apleni.


"Three immigration officers at the OR Tambo Airport were arrested for facilitating the illegal entry and stay of foreign immigrants in South Africa, while the fourth allegedly took a bribe of R1 000 from a foreign national to facilitate illegal entry into South Africa without the necessary yellow fever certificate," he said.


In Mount Frere, two officials were arrested after allegedly issuing a marriage certificate to a deceased person. This was allegedly done in order to claim on an insurance policy, Apleni said.


In Durban, five of the department's employees and a local priest were arrested for allegedly registering hundreds of fraudulent marriages involving foreign nationals and South African citizens. An official in Grahamstown was arrested on similar allegations.


The Hawks and the Anti-Corruption Unit are now analysing all the marriages registered by these officials in order to determine how many fraudulent marriages they had facilitated.


"The arrests of these officials in Johannesburg, Mount Frere, Durban and Grahamstown again send a positive message that the government will leave no stone unturned to ensure those involved in such criminal activities face the full might of the law," Apleni said.


The complicity of some South African citizens in the arranged fraudulent marriages in order to help foreign nationals enter and stay in the country illegally was a serious concern, he added.


Apleni warned that those implicated in such acts would be brought to justice.


The department was also finalising arrangements to host a national anti-corruption summit. The summit, which is to take place later this year, will include the participation of government, business, labour and non-government organisations.


"We believe the summit will help give impetus to existing efforts by the department and law enforcement agencies to rid our society of the cancer of fraud and corruption," said Apleni.


Reported by: South African Government News Service


http://imcosa.co.za/en/news/144-home-affairs-arrests.html