JEREMY MAGGS: The new Home Affairs Minister, Leon Schreiber, has laid out his priorities saying his department is going to prioritise, among other things, dealing with the massive visa backlog, as well as stabilising the department’s online system. He joins me now and, Minister, first of all then can you provide more details on what specific measures are being taken to address this visa mess?
LEON SCHREIBER: So what we’ve done is to put together a team of people from different departments within Home Affairs who are working around the clock to clear this backlog. We’ve also partnered through Business Unity South Africa with Deloitte, that have given us additional resources in the form, not only of training, but also of people to actually sit around the clock and deal with this backlog.
So we started out with over 306 000 applications in this backlog, and I’m happy to report that we’ve cracked 100 000 now, we’ve cleared more than 30% of that. It’s really a key initial priority in the department to make sure that we get this backlog out of the way, give ourselves breathing space to then reform the way the system operates going forward.
JEREMY MAGGS: So what’s the expected timeline then, Minister, for the remaining 70%?
LEON SCHREIBER: Well, the concession that I granted on the first day in the job is running until the end of the year, and the only way for us to avoid extending that concession for a fourth time would be to actually clear this backlog before then.
So that is obviously the goal that we have in mind, but I’m pushing the team hard and making it clear to them that the sooner we’re able to do this, the better it’s going to be for our ability to avoid a repeat of the situation going forward. But I think it is a really important initial litmus test for whether we can move this department forward with the speed and urgency that is required.
JEREMY MAGGS: You have another issue and that is the Immigration Advisory Board. What immediate actions, Minister, are you expecting from this unit?
LEON SCHREIBER: So that board is in the process of being established. There are a couple of legal processes that we need to go through to advertise and invite people to join it, but essentially what it will do is bring together people from Home Affairs, senior officials from some other key government departments, and then a whole range of experts in the field of immigration and the administration of these processes.
The goal with that board will be to provide a forum where we can firstly repair relationships. I think it’s common knowledge that relationships with stakeholders have really broken down and we need to repair that.
The Department of Home Affairs is embroiled in far too many court cases, for example, that involve routine things where people go to court because they think that’s the only way in which they can actually get the department to act. So the forum will be important to bring those voices together and make sure that we can reduce litigation and improve relationships.
But then secondly, it’s also a powerful instrument for us to make sure that we get proper expert input. The statement of intent of the government of national unity talks very clearly about the need for evidence-based policy, and this is how the advisory board can play a key function in making sure that we get proper inputs on some of the policy matters that we’ll have to tackle.
One of them, of course, being the future of the Zimbabwean Exemption Permit [ZEP]. There are no predetermined agendas in this regard. The court made it clear in its rulings that went all the way to the Constitutional Court, that there must be proper consultation, proper input from experts to make sure that we deal with this particular matter and a range of others. The advisory board is an ideal forum for that.
JEREMY MAGGS: Minister, are you finding within your new department that there is a willingness among people to move quickly, given that this has not been the case in the past? And do you have enough people with the right skills to implement the changes that you are trying to make?
LEON SCHREIBER: Well, there are a couple of things to say in that regard.
The first one is that Home Affairs is massively understaffed. So when you talk about people, we have to start by pointing out that we are supposed to have 18 000 officials. We’ve got just about 6 900 at the moment.
So you can just imagine, massive understaffing is a huge challenge in this department. Despite that there are people who have made it clear that they want to come to the table.
I think there are officials who have not previously necessarily had the space to actually be elevated and empowered to do their job properly. I think we have great opportunities to achieve that by embracing technology, for example. So I think there are people who understand that if you’re that massively understaffed, you’re going to have to be innovative and especially embrace technology.
But, of course, then we also know that there are deep-seated issues of corruption in this department.
There was a report by the former director general [DG] in the presidency around this, and there are investigations from the Special Investigating Unit that are ongoing to make sure that we root out corruption and make sure that there’s a zero-tolerance approach to that.
So I think it’s a matter of finding good officials, elevating them. The people working on the backlog projects certainly are people who are willing to go above and beyond, and I think it’s important that we empower those kinds of officials going forward.
But certainly, there are some key appointments that will have to be made. I’ve got some critical vacancies and I really need to fill those as well going forward to make sure that we strengthen the capacity in the department.
JEREMY MAGGS: How deeply entrenched is the culture of corruption within Home Affairs?
LEON SCHREIBER: Well, I think that’s where the investigation by the former DG, Dr Cassius Lubisi, was really an important moment because it laid bare some of the issues that are manifesting itself really even at frontline level when it comes to permitting processes and applications and so on. So I think that there most definitely is a problem, but this is the kind of thing that you have to tackle as part of a bigger reform agenda.
There are ways in which technology can help reduce corruption, for example.
Then there’s the obvious need for disciplinary processes and prosecutions that reduces corruption. Then there’s the creation of a new culture, working environment, where people actually are rewarded for doing their job and going above and beyond, that also provides incentives to reduce corruption.
So I think weaved into everything we need to do at this department is the theme of making sure that we deal with this. But it’s a multifaceted approach and it involves a number of different reforms. It’s not only one thing, one silver bullet that’s going to solve this problem.
JEREMY MAGGS: How are you going to manage and reduce long queues?
LEON SCHREIBER: Well, I’m looking at a couple of ideas on how to do this. I think the first thing that will make a huge difference is simply getting the online system to be online. I’ve said repeatedly now that the idea of the system being offline is something that must become anathema in Home Affairs. It’s not a joke, it’s not funny. It’s not something we can accept.
So there are some ways in which we could do simple things like speeding up the internet connections. You would be surprised that some of these major Home Affairs offices are currently connected to lines with 10 megabyte per second speeds. That is just not sufficient. So there are a whole range of technological steps that we need to take.
But then I think the other thing we need to do is examine how to make better use of the online appointment system. My view is that one of the problems we have is that the queues are actually not integrated. So in other words, there are people who would make online appointments and show up in the timeframe that they’re required to be there, but then there are of course also walk-ins at many offices. That creates a real problem then with actually honouring the online booking appointments.
I think what we need to do is find ways of integrating the queues so that you have one queue to manage.
Finally, I would say that there are some innovative ideas coming. There’s one office in Epping, in Cape Town that has put together what they call the one-stop-shop model, where instead of having to go to a separate photo booth and a separate cashier, often that creates the bottlenecks, you’ll be able to go to a counter and get the full service, the photo, the payment, the processing, all in one spot. These things sound like simple things, Jeremy, but I think if we do these things right, you actually will see an impact on reducing the queues.
JEREMY MAGGS: Minister Leon Schreiber, thank you very much indeed.