‘Home Affairs will suffer irreparable harm’: Auditor-general flags number of delayed projects

The Citizen - 13 October 2022

Key targets relating to the department's modernisation projects have not been achieved.

The Department of Home Affairs has to address a number of challenges and bolster its Information technology (IT) systems to improve service delivery.

This is according to the Auditor-General’s office.

On Tuesday, the office briefed Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs regarding the department’s audit outcomes for the 2021/2022 financial year, which ran from April 2021 to March 2022.

Annual performance report

During the briefing, Fhumulani Rabonda, deputy business executive at the Auditor-General’s office, informed the committee that Home Affairs submitted its annual performance report, but there were material misstatements that needed to be adjusted.

“We managed to correct the material misstatements that we had identified during the [audit] process,” he said.

Rabonda revealed that the department has achieved 69% of its annual targets in the 2021/2022 financial year.

However, key targets relating to the department’s modernisation projects – which includes Abis and e-Visa system – as well as the the establishment of the border management agency (BMA) have not been met.

He explained that the department had set targets that it intends to achieve by 2024 in the medium-term strategic framework, which was reviewed in 2019.

“We had looked at the current year’s performance report [and] what does it tell us in relation to these targets they have set themselves. We [have] highlighted the fact that the targets in relation to modernisation projects are behind schedule,” he said.

Rabonda pointed that while the border management agency has been formed, it is not yet fully functional due to the implementation protocols that have not been signed at this stage.

Modernisation projects

e-Visa and BMCS

Regarding the e-Visa system and Biometric Movement Control System (BMCS), Rabonda said the Auditor-General’s office has identified there were “significant control deficiencies” and warned that these needed to be given attention.

“If they are not addressed, the modernisation projects may have similar significant control deficiencies as the legacy systems. This means that what Home Affairs will have new systems with the same problems,” he continued.

Rabonda explained that these deficiencies were caused by poor project management and governance processes within Home Affairs’ IT internal department.

“Over the past few years, we have been reporting that there is leadership instability in the ICT environment in Home Affairs. So our recommendation is that action plans should be developed and implemented to address the significant control deficiencies,” he added.

Earlier this year, Home Affairs revealed it was working on the e-Visa system, which allows tourists visiting South Africa to apply for their visas online and thereafter be issued virtually.

The paperless virtual visa is intended to combat visa fraud and open South Africa as a desirable destination. 

The department had also indicated at the time that it was in the process of developing the BMCS, which will enable the capturing of fingerprint and facial biometric data of all travellers who enter or exit South Africa.

This system is expected to be rolled out at 34 ports of entry across the country – including major airports and land borders.

Abis system

Budget increase

Meanwhile, Rabonda further told the committee that phase one of the Automated Biometric Identification System (Abis), which was launched in 2018, is yet to be completed.

Home Affairs had targeted to finish the first phase by December 2021, and the department has spent at least R294 million on this phase.

Rabonda revealed that the budget of the Abis project, which is aimed at ending identity theft, has increased from R410 million to R475 million as a result of delays and “technology becoming more expensive”.

“There is a need for the department to monitor closely the remaining budget to avoid having the need to having to ask more funds for this project because if that is not done then government may find itself with a project that they need to fund more from the limited budget that is available,” he told the committee.

He said the delays were caused by IT firms, EOH and Idemia.

“You will remember that EOH decided to pull out of a number of government projects including this one and on doing so the department appointed Idemia as the service provider,” he continued.

In May 2021, the committee heard how EOH allegedly flouted tender processes to score the Abis contract, valued at more than R400 million, from the department.

Payments made to EOH regarding the Abis project amounted to R283 million.

The company was then slapped with a penalty by the department and was subjected to a Hawks investigated.

“The delays by service providers saw the department invoking penalties of R62 million in terms of EOH and R3 million regarding Idemia,” Rabonda added.

‘National adverse impact’

The Abis system was introduced to replace the Home Affairs National Identification System (HANIS), which was said to be manually operated and outdated.

According to the department, Abis aims to act as a fundamental baseline for the national identification system and will consolidate South African and foreign nationals’ data into a single base.

Rabonda noted that the importance of the Abis system, saying it would have a “national adverse impact” if it was not completed.

“The department will suffer irreparable harm if it’s not successfully implemented because this project is critical to resolving some of the risks faced by Home Affairs and the Security Cluster as a whole. Hence we are saying there is a need to appreciate the impact the department’s service delivery, the economy and security of the state.

“Everybody who is involved needs to jealously guard this project to make sure that all that needs to be done is done within time and effectively so,” he explained.

Later in the briefing, Rabonda said the Abis project was one of the major causes of irregular expenditure for Home Affairs (R12.8 million) in the 2021/2022 financial year.

 

www.samigration.com

 

 

 

Pakistani National In Trouble With SANDF After He Was Caught In Cape Town Airport With This

SAFM news – 13 October 2022

South Africa is experiencing a daily increase in the rate of crime, which is stifling economic, social, and human capital growth. This is because investors are afraid to create standard businesses due to the uncertainty caused by the rising crime rate.

This has happened despite the efforts made by the government to address problems associated with insecurity and crimes related to it. You will be persuaded that our nation is in shambles if you take a stroll along any of the major streets in South Africa.

Earlier today, South African Immigration, in collaboration with the Hawks team, carried out a search operation at Cape Town International Airport with the purpose of seizing illegal drugs.

The officers obtained a report from the intelligence community that detailed a Pakistani individual who was responsible for bringing a significant quantity of cocaine into the country. After the authorities came, their first order of business was to locate the suspect and then to take him into custody for questioning.

After being questioned and searched thoroughly, it was discovered that he was in possession of cocaine with a street value of R2.4 million. The four kilograms of illegal substances were concealed inside a package that was then coated in chocolate.

The drugs were confiscated, and the suspect, who was 37 years old, was taken into custody. As soon as the investigation is over, he will be questioned in court in preparation for his arraignment.

www.samigration.com

 

 

 

Home affairs has dropped central adjudication of visas, after months of complaints

Business Insider SA -11 October 2022

 

The department of home affairs has reversed a decision to centralise the adjudication of long-term visas.

• That plan lasted for only a couple of months, and did not go at all well.
• Embassies – previously accused of sometimes endangering national security or harming the economy – are now back in charge.

As of 1 September, South Africa is no longer centralising the adjudication of long-term visas, the department of home affairs (DHA) confirmed on Tuesday.

That brings to an end a fraught six-month period for those who applied for such visas, previously handled by individual South African missions abroad, and makes consular officials responsible again for deciding who is let in to South Africa

Visa specialists first noted the reversal on the weekend, saying it expected an announcement from the department on the transitional arrangement for visas already in process.

The DHA told Business Insider South Africa only that it "did issue a new directive which came into effect on Thursday 01 September 2022". It did not provide a copy of the directive, despite repeated requests, and has made no public statement on the matter.

Extreme delays in issuing such visas – with delays facilitation companies described as unprecedented – have been a significant headache for foreign companies investing and doing business in South Africa, Business Leadership SA CEO Busisiwe Mavuso told the News24 On The Record conference on Thursday, the same day the reversal came into effect.

WATCH: Home affairs officials caught on their phones as people queue to be helped

The Department of Home Affairs has said it will investigate after officials were filmed using their cellphones while on duty. Video footage of two officials on their phones at the Tongaat office in KwaZulu-Natal was widely circulated on social media. In the video members of the public can be seen waiting to be helped. Acting home affairs director general Thulani Mavuso has...

Those affected have included companies that signed up to President Cyril Ramaphosa's investment drive, but have since said delays nearing a year in processing work visas for critical foreign staff meant they could not start work.

Some companies expressed acute frustration because they could find no way to reach a department official who could provide even a vague prediction of how long a visa would take – or who could even confirm that a visa application had been accepted as properly lodged – making it impossible to plan moves for employees who needed to secure places in schools for children and move their households across oceans. 

Until Thursday, all work visa applications with a duration of more than three months had to be sent to Pretoria for a decision by the director general of the DHA, in an effort to create consistency – and prevent corruption. Visa facilitators said missions were told the DHA was concerned about reports of arbitrary demands for documents, with the implication that these were subtle solicitations for bribes. They were also told that only central decision-making could balance the need for national security with the need to allow foreign investors to move with speed.

But centralisation was a disaster. Visas that previously took between four and eight weeks to issue suddenly took a minimum of 12 weeks – and consultants reported that the reality was closer to eight months.

Their clients, those consultants said, could not wait that long, and would simply take their business to another country.

Visa facilitation companies believe the consular service divisions of missions – still fully staffed to process visas – may now be able to bring turnaround times down to as low as two weeks.

www.samigration.com

 

 

Home Affairs Official Spent His First Night In Jail After He Was Arrested For This

11 October 2022 – Opera News

Home Affairs Official has been arrested and he was working in the Permitting Section, this is a very unfortunate turn of events but it is showing us a glimpse of the corruption which is happening in our state departments and that's something that should concern a lot of people in the country.

This means that the system has been infiltrated by these individuals who have been given that responsibility of keeping those jobs and ensuring that things are going according to plan, not taking advantage of the system in order to make some money on the side.

We’re talking about these individuals who are simply printing out identification documents for around R10,000, which is not much and is really a serious problem considering how small that amount of money is and if there are individuals who have a lot of money to pay for such documents then it becomes a serious problem.

The DHA Counter Corruption together with Hawks Anti-Corruption Unit in Pretoria arrested an official based at Permitting Section in Hallmark for landing illegal foreigners in the Movement Control System to Legalised them, so that they can apply Visas. This criminality is definitely like that and it doesn’t seem like it will be stopped at any time soon by these individuals, that is the responsibility of the authorities to step in.

As well as to ensure that these things are prevented because they definitely cannot allow the crimes to continue unabated, we are having individuals who are probably criminals in their own countries whereby they run towards South Africa and they’re basically becoming legal citizens and we don't even know how or what kind of people they are.

Counter Corruption Officials interviewed the suspect and he admitted that for each transaction received R8000, so you can see that these individuals are selling the country for such little money and it is definitely a very concerning thing to a lot of people.

It is at the expense of the safety and security of the other citizens so when these individuals receive such small amounts such as R8000, it gives a lot of people the impression that the law is really flexible and it can be bent.

The suspects were detained at Pretoria Central Police Station and he will appear on Monday at Pretoria Magistrate Court, as usual we know that the suspect will probably receive some kind of bail from the situation.

www.samigration.com

 

Home Affairs nails 500 fake South African passports

11 October 2022 – IOL

The Department of Home Affairs has identified 500 fraudulent passports in the last three financial years – with 185 documents blocked in 2022 alone.

Responding to a written parliamentary Q&A this week, home affairs minister Aaron Motsoaledi said that his department is escalating its fight against fraudsters and is boosting security measures in place to flag fake documents.

The minister said that each time an investigation uncovered one of the 500 fraudulently issued passports, the passport numbers were blocked on the National Population Register so that the holders were unable to use them.

These numbers were also referred for V-listing on the Movement Control System, he said, which means that should the holders of the fraudulent documents attempt to use them at a port of entry, immigration officers are alerted.

Since January 2022, 185 passports have been investigated, with the passport numbers blocked on the register and, placed on the V-Stoplist.

The lack of security around South Africa’s passports has made headlines in 2022, with an internet joke about “Lebogang Ndlovu from Bangladesh” spreading on local social media.

The joke arose from incidents where home affairs officials were arrested for fraudulently processing illegal immigrants and where Bangladeshi and Pakistani citizens were caught using false South African passports abroad.

In August, Motsoaledi said that his department would rescind some “luxuries” afforded to South Africans to tighten up passport security.

This includes removing the ability for anyone to pick up a passport on an applicant’s behalf or having passports shipped for collection to other parts of the country. The changes are:

• A passport can only be collected strictly from the office where it was applied for, whereas previously, you could collect it from any office in the country.
• Only the person who applied for that passport can come and collect it by activating it through a fingerprint.
• For minor children, their parents or guardians who helped them to apply for that passport will be the only ones allowed to come and collect it and activate using their own fingerprints.

Additional security measures in place include:

• The Director-General of the Department of Home Affairs signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Interpol on 29 July 2022 on reporting lost and stolen passports.
• South Africa is a signatory to the Convention on International Civil Aviation Origination (ICAO) and is subjected to regular audits, including on how it handles lost and stolen passports.
• The Department has also revised its Standard Operating Procedures, Manuals and Policies regarding lost and stolen passports, and these are being implemented.

The minister said that these measures are part of the first phase in a three-phase process. The second and third phases are still to take place, with the second only being publicly announced once the required technologies and systems are in place, while the third will remain secret to prevent fraudsters from exploiting it.

In March 2022, the department arrested several Pakistani and Somalian citizens, together with an equal number of South African citizens, who were involved in passport fraud.

to date, 12 home affairs officials have been charged with misconduct with eight dismissals, while the remainder are still pending disciplinary hearings.

The officials and members of the public involved have also been charged criminally for fraud, corruption, money laundering, racketeering and contravention of the Immigration Act, with the cases still pending in court.

www.samigration.com