New Home Affairs system to be introduced in South Africa – what you should know

28 May 2022 – Businesstech

 

Home Affairs minister Aaron Motsoaledi has announced a complete revamp of his department’s systems in a move to cut down on long queues.

Presenting his departmental budget speech on Tuesday (24 May), Motsoaledi said that much of the work and resources are focused on the ‘original sin’ of his department – system downtime.

“It is painful and generates a lot of anger to visit a Home Affairs office very early in the morning and just stand there and wait for hours on end because all systems are down. It is very frustrating to say the least.

“Many members of the public simply believe Department of Home Affairs computers don’t work, and they keep asking us, why don’t you just fix your computers or even buy new once? We can’t blame them. They don’t know that the problem of systems that continuously down go beyond just fixing a computer.”

To address these and other issues, Motsoaledi said his department would be making the following changes:

Revamping the old network

The State Information Technology Agency will spend R400 million revamping its entire network, with the process expected to be concluded in the third quarter of this financial year. This is expected to significantly increase bandwidth at Home affairs offices.

The agency has also doubled its internet capacity and introduced three failovers located in three cities:  Tshwane, Cape Town and eThekwini.  This will ensure that if any of the network is down, there will be two to support Home Affairs’ services, Motsoaledi said.

Bringing in engineers from the banks

To address system downtime, Motsoaledi said Home Affairs has hired eight IT engineers from a leading bank to assist in stabilising the network as well as with the installation of some key IT infrastructure.

“All eight IT specialists have been through the vetting process and have completed it. They will soon join us. We believe that the partnerships with the banks will rapidly reduce the skills deficit and assist the Department to improve and maintain system uptime.”

While banks are prepared to offer some of the Home Affairs services at some of their branches, Motsoaledi noted that they are worried about the reputational damage that system downtime would cause them.

“Remember that for them to offer Home Affairs services, they need to verify the details of the client by using our system.  If there is downtime the banks also get stuck.

“We believe that as soon as their own engineers have helped us to increase system uptime, the banks will cheerfully open their doors for Home Affairs services.”

Branches in malls

The introduction of Home Affairs outlets inside shopping malls will provide ‘immediate relief’ in areas which already have high footfall, said Motsoaledi.

“Operating Home Affairs offices at malls will obviate the problem of queuing in the sun or rain. Malls will also provide convenient and safe parking for clients. We shall start with Menlyn mall in Pretoria, Cresta mall and Southgate mall in Johannesburg, the Pavillion in eThekwini and Tygervalley mall in Cape Town.

“Since the malls still have to move some tenants around to make way for Home Affairs, we will install our equipment there around September this year. We shall start with the Menlyn Mall in Pretoria and then roll out to the rest.”

Branch Appointment Booking System (BABS)

Motsoaledi also confirmed that his department was expanding its new online booking system called BABS (Branch Appointment Booking System).

The system, which is presently being piloted in 24 of the busiest offices,  will be rolling out this system to more outlets in the coming months, he said.

“The pilot started in December last year at the Byron and Akasia offices in a hybrid model allowing booked and walk-in clients. A total of 33,463 people have used the system between December 2021 and 13 May 2022.

“Apart from making sure that there are no queues in the Home Affairs offices where it is implemented, the BABS system will help eradicate corruption by making sure that those who practice the obnoxious behaviour of selling queue spaces have no clients because clients book straight online and come at the appropriate time, and hence they have no need to buy space from anybody in the queue.”

Generators 

Apart from downtime due to SITA networks and Home Affairs, load shedding has added another burden on the shoulders of Home Affairs.

“We have installed generators in all our 197 modernised offices but our remaining 215 non-modernised offices will be out of operation for the duration of load shedding in a particular area, further increasing the queues,” he said.

Digitisation of paper records

Motsoaledi confirmed his department plans to digitise 300 million paper records from as far back as 1895.

“Once done, digitisation will relieve the long queues because it makes it unnecessary for people who need services such as rectification and name changes not to come to Home Affairs and queue many times as they are doing now.”

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