Queue, the beloved country
– Welcome to Aaron Motsoaledi’s dysfunctional Department of Home Affairs
Daily Maverick - 14 May 2022
The Home Affairs director-general has told
Parliament that there are 9,025 unfunded vacancies in the Civic Services branch
alone. Staff shortages, budget cuts and regular network failures are causing
block-long queues outside offices across the country.
Day-long
queues have become a permanent feature outside Home Affairs offices across the
country, from Johannesburg to
Stellenbosch and Cape Town. Although the
top brass are trying to solve the causes, a budget shortage means the issue
won’t be sorted out in the near future, despite a “war
on queues” programme initiated in 2018.
The
problem appears to be that Treasury, crumbling under multiple pressures, does
not have the money.
Briefing
Parliament on 31
August last year, Director-General of Home Affairs Livhuwani Makhode said only
37% of civic services posts at Home Affairs were filled, adding that the 9,025
vacant posts were unfunded. Civic Services is the branch dealing with citizens’
applications within the 412 Home Affairs offices nationwide, as well as at
about 100 mobile units and 27 bank branches.
This
includes clerks servicing clients, various functions such as fingerprinting and
biometrics capture, and back-office staff processing document applications.
Even the
approved and funded posts are not filled.
According
to the department’s latest 2020/21 annual report,
the total number of funded staff positions across all three Home Affairs
programmes – administration, citizen affairs and immigration affairs – is
8,617. Of these, 8,451 posts are filled, leaving 166 vacancies. In citizen
affairs, 52 funded posts are vacant.
The 9,025
civic services vacancies – more than double the current staff contingent of all
three divisions – are not mentioned in the annual report, possibly because they
are unfunded and thus not approved.
Questions
about the unfunded vacancies sent to Home Affairs spokesperson David Hlabane
have not been answered despite having initially been sent in February, with a
blue-ticked WhatsApp follow-up, and continual follow-ups over the past week via
email and WhatsApp. Additionally, no response to budgetary questions has been
forthcoming from Treasury.
As
reported by DM168’s Rebecca Pitt, the department, in its annual performance
presentation plan of 26 April, requested an additional R266-million from
Treasury for employment compensation to fill 762 vacant posts (427 for civic
services, 328 for immigration services and seven for information services).
The
Western Cape manager for the public servants’ union, the Public Servants’
Association (PSA) of South Africa, Aileen Mosetic, said Home Affairs only had
about 47% of the staff they needed.
“For
example, in the Stellenbosch office there are nine officers and there should be
42,” said Mosetic.
“So there
are huge shortages. It’s a national matter and spills into all the provinces.”
She said
the matter was one of 40 issues currently being dealt with at the bargaining
council, and although staff shortages were prevalent in all civil service
departments, Home Affairs “clearly needs more staff”.
However,
she said news from the bargaining chamber was that approval had just been
received for a further 1,000 posts at Home Affairs, to be advertised in the
current financial year beginning 1 April. Adverts had already started going
out, she said. These posts excluded border management, which would be getting
its own posts.
There are
also vacancies in critical senior posts. The annual report states that the post
of chief information officer, deputy director-general for counter corruption,
as well as security services posts, are vacant. Legal services, policy, the
Standing Committee for Refugee Affairs, the Refugee Appeals Authority, risk
management and the inspectorate are “undercapacitated”.
Budget cuts
The
Department of Home Affairs’ annual report notes the 2020/21 budget of
R8,787,408,000 (R8.8-billion) was R740-million less than the previous year’s
budget of R9,527,704,000 (R9.5-billion). This was owing to budget cuts imposed
by Treasury for Covid-19 expenditure and on cost of employment, as well as the
department achieving R563-million less in projected revenue from payments for
services owing to office closures during Covid-19 lockdowns.
Overtime
payments to staff in order to meet some targets resulted in “reducing
much-needed funding for the filling of critical vacancies in the front line”,
states the annual report. The budget for salaries was reduced over the Medium
Term Expenditure Framework, resulting in the department being “unable to create
posts or fill vacancies as posts were unfunded as and when posts were vacated”.
Funds
also had to be reprioritised for the Border Management Authority (R80-million),
digitisation of records (R18-million) and ministerial committees of inquiry
(R10-million).
Attempts
to open offices on Saturdays, which would also allow pupils requiring
documentation to avoid missing school, or service people who were unable to
take leave from work, have been stymied by a combination of unions and a lack
of funds.
The PSA,
according to national spokesperson Reuben Maleka, demands staff be paid
overtime should they be required to work on Saturdays. As indicated in the
annual report, the department is already struggling with a limited budget to
pay employees.
Broken connections
Queuing
outside Home Affairs before sunrise is no guarantee of making it into the
building before sunset. On-the-ground experience is that Home Affairs offices
regularly go offline, effectively shutting down applications for documents
until the system is back online. This may take hours, or even the entire day.
Even trying to evade the queues by getting an appointment via the department’s
new e-booking system can be frustrating for those with internet connections or
sufficient data. The website was inaccessible for at least two days this past
week.
System
downtime continues to frustrate clients and staff, as there are no viable
alternatives, the department admits in its annual report.
To
improve network uptime, the department concluded an agreement with the State
Information Technology Agency (Sita) and Dimension Data in the 2018/19
financial year “to develop a network architecture appropriate for the
department and to manage the telecommunication service providers”. At least
R200-million is required for implementation, but the department did not have
the budget, according to the annual report.
Yet, replying to a parliamentary question on 18
February posed by DA MP and Home Affairs committee member Adrian Roos, Minister
of Home Affairs Aaron Motsoaledi said the downtime percentage during the
2020/21 financial year was just 1.26% and it was because of cable theft. The
downtime percentage for April 2021 to February 2022 was 4.39% and it was
because some offices don’t have generators during load shedding.
This is
far from what DM168 has gathered from interviews with citizens trying to
access services.
EFF
parliamentary portfolio committee member Lorato Tito asked the minister what
measures had been put in place to remedy the department’s “perennial
connectivity problems” in light of the Sita CEO’s statement in September last
year that the Department of Home Affairs’ choice of a “cheap network
connectivity plan” was to blame.
Motsoaledi’s
reply of 25
February was that the department had a bronze service-level agreement with
Sita, which provided 95% service availability and resolution of disconnectivity
within 16 hours. Yet it took Sita three to five days to resolve network issues.
“This
means that even under the low level of bronze we are not necessarily getting
what we signed for. It is true that Sita argued that we need to move to gold.
Our question is: if even the low bronze standard can’t be met at that low
level, how will a gold standard at a higher level be met?” stated Motsoaledi.
To answer
this question, he said the department, together with Sita, had upgraded five
offices to the gold service-level agreement to determine whether this would
lead to improved network connectivity in those offices. The outcome of the
proof of concept “is awaited”.
Last year
Makhode told Parliament the department needed to upgrade its “dilapidated
routers and switches”.
Sita
spokesperson Tlali Tlali said the department’s local area network (LAN) and
wireless area network (WAN) infrastructure is ageing and often “outright
obsolete”.
Tlali
said a 2019 assessment found 398 of the department’s 450 LAN devices were
obsolete, and 112 of 395 WAN devices were obsolete. He said data from January
and February this year showed online service reachability was 87.81% and 93.48%
of the time, respectively.
“Reachability
is defined as ‘the percentage of time the monitoring tools housed at Sita
premises can communicate with an element or the device at the [Department of
Home Affairs] offices’,” stated Tlali.
But the
department was responsible for ensuring the IT infrastructure was always available
at the premises, and Sita could only quantify the downtime experienced for the
services it was responsible for. Applications, the LAN, routers and facilities
were not in Sita’s ambit.
He said
Treasury has approved a Sita request for permission to appoint an alternate
provider for the core network, given that the current provider, Broadband
Infraco, which uses the Transnet Freight Rail network, was severely affected by
vandalism and the cable theft of railway lines. It would take 18 months for the
new provider to be brought on board. Sita has also set R400-million aside to
replace all legacy equipment that had reached its end of life to create a
fit-for-purpose and scalable network.
Dilapidated offices
The
annual report notes that only 195 of 412 offices have been modernised with
live-capture systems for smart ID cards and passport applications.
Citizens
not only have to spend hours in queues, they often have to do so outside
dilapidated buildings. The annual report notes that some of their offices are
“poorly located and do not meet the norms and standards set for modernised
offices”. More than half (229 of 412) of the offices are leased from private
landlords, often on a month-to-month basis, “leaving landlords with little
incentive to maintain or upgrade their buildings”.
Home
Affairs is dependent on the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure to
acquire and maintain office space.
Queues for Africa
The lack
of budget, lack of online connectivity, lack of modernisation in many offices
and staff shortages, all of which also require efforts from other departments,
combine to frustrate citizens’ needs to comply with obligations placed upon
them by the state.
DM168 has
reported on how citizens in Johannesburg and Stellenbosch wait in vain for an
entire day to apply for identity documents or passports. The situation at the
main Home Affairs office in Cape Town, Barrack Street, is no different.
The
Barrack Street offices used to be able to process ID applications during a
lunch hour. In 2017, it took less than an hour for this reporter to apply for a
passport renewal and, similarly, it took 45 minutes to apply for a new ID in
2013.
But
visits to the offices in November 2021 and February this year revealed a vast
deterioration. At noon, people who had been queuing since 7am had still not got
into the building. Arriving at 6am a few days later, two queues (one for ID
applications and one for passport applications) stretched about 40m down the
road. At 6.30am on 22 February, the queue had lengthened, stretching a distance
of about 80m.
With the Barrack Street Home
Affairs office only processing about 80 ID applications per day, many people
still queuing at midday are likely to be turned away. (Photo: Steve Kretzmann /
WCN)
Informal opportunities
The
dysfunction at Home Affairs has created opportunities for informal sector
entrepreneurs. A group of about 20 homeless people have taken to sleeping on
the street outside the Barrack Street office. As the queue starts gathering
from as early as 5am, they sell their place at the front for R100 to latecomers
arriving after 6am.
With
about 200 people lined up, and the security guard having handed out numbers
down the line, Andy Pierce was selling his place in the queue, number 14. At 27
years old, Pierce said he’s been living on the street since his mother died
when he was 16. He said his father, who was violent, had left their home in
Eerste River. He was earning some money by helping a trader on the Grand Parade
offload and sell his goods twice a week, but getting a job in the formal
economy is almost impossible, as he had never attended school. Asked why, he
said, when he was in Grade 1 in Bonteheuwel, other children broke his leg
because he was able to run faster than them. He never went back; his mother
taught him to read and write.
With
people having to line up for five hours or more before getting inside,
29-year-old Swazi Beja is earning an income hiring out plastic chairs.
Charging
R5 a chair, Beja said he started his business in October after seeing someone
doing it outside Home Affairs in Bellville. He bought 50 chairs for R600, and
was making at least R250 per day, but says he has to pay R250 a week to store
them nearby.
He said
people started hiring chairs from 6am, but business was usually slow until
midday, when people got tired and the shade disappeared.
While
speaking to him, a woman hired two chairs, one for herself and one for her
daughter, who was missing a day of school in order to apply for her ID. Beja
disinfected and wiped the chairs down before handing them to her, offering to
carry them to her place in the queue. He said he had completed a business
course at the College of Cape Town.
Andy Pierce is one of scores of
homeless people who sleep outside the Barrack Street Home Affairs office in
order to keep a place at the front of the early-morning queue, selling it for
R100 to late-comers. (Photo: Steve Kretzmann / WCN) Swazi Beja makes a living
hiring out chairs to people having to stand for hours outside the Barrack Street
Home Affairs office. (Photo: Steve Kretzmann / WCN)
Impact of state dysfunction
But while
informal entrepreneurs are able to benefit from failures within Home Affairs,
it is hampering people’s ability to work, study, find employment and take
advantage of opportunities. Ashley Ramushwana was taking his second day off
work to try to apply for his passport in order to take up the opportunity of
working on a movie in Thailand. The former College of Magic student was number
75 in the passport application queue and it took from 7am to noon to get close
to the Home Affairs office doors.
“They
hand out 80 numbers a day,” said Ramushwana. “When the offices opened [at 8am],
the queue was to the corner of the block.”
Speaking
to DM168 on a Monday, he said he had initially come to Home Affairs at
10am the previous Friday to discover he would not get served and would have to
return and line up early on Monday.
Even
though he was near the door after queuing for five hours, he said an official
had warned them the system could go offline at any time and they might have to
leave.
He had
checked the Home Affairs website to see if he could apply online but had had no
success.
“The
website is rubbish,” he said.
Sihle
Cutshwa (24) from Dunoon was also in the queue, enduring the midday sun with
her 10-month-old baby girl, Kanya, to apply for her ID, which she lost when her
phone was stolen, as she kept her ID in her phone cover.
Luvuyo
Ngqaza was spending a second day queuing, this time to collect his ID. He had
arrived at 9am and, with the collections queue being shorter and moving faster,
he was at the front of the queue at 11.45am. But to apply for his ID two weeks
earlier, he had arrived at 6am and left at 3.30pm.
Unemployed,
he had struggled to get the money to travel from Hout Bay, where he lives, to
the city centre twice, as well as paying the R140 to get a new ID card.
Numerous
other people spoken to informally told of having to take days off work,
struggling to obtain money for transport and fees as some were unemployed; parents
having to take their children out of school; and job seekers unable to look for
work until they obtained their ID.
Sihle Cutshwa (24) from Dunoon
had to endure hours in the hot sun with her 10-month-old baby girl, Kanya, in
order to apply for a new ID after it was stolen with her phone.
(Photo: Steve Kretzmann / WCN)
SPEAK OUT
We
requested feedback on the Daily Maverick website, asking readers to share their
experience of service at Home Affairs. This is a random selection of 178 notes
received from readers:
“I am 69
years old and needed to renew my passport. I queued from 3am and walked out of
there at 11.30am although I was the second person in the queue. They helped the
chommies first.”
“DHA is
overcontrolled by its Pretoria office. Branches are not permitted to fix errors
on the DHA national computer system. Everything has to go to Pretoria for
correction.”
“Praise
where it is due! New Hanover Home Affairs completed my application for a new
South African passport in 45 minutes. I collected the passport within six weeks
and within 20 minutes of arrival.”
“I am a
teacher and need to obtain a new passport. I have been 12 times and each time
turned away because it will be too late to do my submission. I was told it
could be done for R500.”
“Well how
about requesting and paying for a non–abridged birth certificate in 2017 then
told in 2018 to reorder and repay. Finally, the certificate was issued in
2020.”
“Ordered
and paid for an unabridged birth certificate for my son so he could get his
passport – never received it and the receipt faded due to the paper it was
printed on, so no proof now!”
“Well,
actually been good for me and mine. But for one of our employees, disaster –
waited 10 years for confirmation of ID number and temporary document but still
doesn’t have card.”
“Seamless
recent experience: applied for passport and ID card online; paid online; made
appointment at Killarney Jhb Home Affairs branch online. Wonderful, helpful
staff – docs collected a month later!”
“I
applied for SA citizenship September 2018 at Home Affairs Cape Town. My
application was accepted after it was checked that all necessary documents were
attached. I have heard nothing since.”
www.samigration.com
