Home affairs is a disaster, says new DG
By Janine Stephen and Dianne Hawker
The situation at the home affairs department is "a national disaster", says new director-general Mavuso Msimang.
He said unless the best people available were employed, the department's problems "could jeopardise 2010" and the value of the country's passports would continue to be undermined.
The seventh head of the department in 13 years has called for urgent measures to be taken to address a serious lack of capacity at management level.
In addition, the department has just under 2 000 vacant funded posts to fill this financial year.
Msimang was addressing the National Assembly's home affairs committee on Tuesday about new measures being taken to overhaul the beleaguered department.
"The calculation of the cost of not running home affairs properly is so enormous that we would like to look at getting the best people, regardless of what they cost, using whatever is allowed within the public service conditions to pay such people," Msimang said.
He said supplementary funding could be utilised.
Meanwhile, ministerial adviser Mike Ramagoma has announced that the department has given itself 18 months to correct the situation, with the help of a "turnaround action team".
The team, announced on Tuesday, included private and public sector experts who would begin by drafting a business model to be employed in the department to increase efficiency and customer service.
The announcement came soon after the announcement of a Track and Trace system, which would monitor the progress of identity documents in the department.
The turnaround action team includes:
- A project group, headed by former Sacob CEO Kevin Wakeford, to co-ordinate sections of the team.
- A task force from the National Treasury which will assist with establishing "sound financial processes".
- An IT panel including industry and government experts.
- A communications support and transformation element to ensure that improvements in Home Affairs impact positively on the publics confidence in the department.
- A business re-engineering team including experts from global managing consulting firm AT Kearney and its local affiliate, Fever Tree Consulting.
MPs were initially sceptical about the new turnaround strategy. ANC MP Windvo?l Skhosana said MPs had been hearing about a turnaround strategy since Barry Gilder was director general (in 2004).
Skhosana questioned whether the department actually had the person power to make a difference.
But Msimang assured the committee that this time, things would change.
The strategy would result in the proper functioning of the department - unless they did not receive the necessary resources, he said.
Judging from the proposed medium term expenditure framework presented to the portfolio committee, resources could be a concern.
Chief financial officer Pat Nkambule said the department had asked for some R2,4-billion in additional funds for measures that included beefing up information services and anti-corruption measures in 2007/08, but just R192-million had been approved.
This article was originally published on page 5 of The Cape Argus on May 23, 2007