If Home Affairs fails, our country fails

Note to editors: The following speech was delivered in Parliament today by the DA’s Shadow Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, Archibold Figlan MP, during the Budget Vote on Home Affairs.
Honourable Chairperson,
This department is one of the most important in our government. It touches the hearts and minds of every single South African and is often used as an indication of just how well our government works. If Home Affairs fails, our country fails.
For this reason, everything we do in this department must bring change to the lives of our people and make a positive contribution to the development of all South Africans and the country as a whole.
The smart ID rollout programme, as my colleague has already mentioned, has made some sterling progress, but the rate of delivery is still too slow. At the current rollout rate, it is likely to take more than ten years to ensure that we convert from the old ID book to the new smart ID card. We must, therefore, implement new measures to achieve this target sooner than planned. We welcome the introduction of banks in assisting with this rollout but there are still too few banks that can entertain applications.
The long queues at Home Affairs offices are also a massive problem for people who are unable to spend an entire day away from work, just to apply for an ID document.
Many offices around the country stop accepting people from 15:30. We appeal to the Minister to take careful note of the declining quality standards at many offices countrywide. In particular, the Edenvale Office in Johannesburg, the Bellville office in Cape Town, and the Umgeni Road office in Durban are the main culprits.
Honourable speaker, for many years now, we have raised the concern around the registration of new-born children. Thousands of children who live in our country are still not properly registered and years later when they attempt to register, it becomes very difficult to prove that they are South African citizens.
Many parents do not take this responsibility seriously. Only 75% of the children born in our country are registered within 30 days. This is a scary statistic. We must do more to ensure that every single child that is born in this country, is properly registered. It does not help that registration facilities at hospitals are inoperable and under staffed. This exacerbates the problem and must receive urgent attention from the Minister.
Honourable Chairperson, another area of concern is the massive backlog that we have in the permanent resident application process.
Recently, the Director-General announced that about 4 600 applications are no longer on the system. What has happened to those applications? Why have they simply disappeared and what steps are being taken to inform every applicant to re-apply?
Many applicants have already been waiting for many years for the adjudication process to be completed, and now we hear that their applications have somehow been deleted. I invite the Honourable Minister to inform this house of the details in this regard, in her final reply.
Honourable Chairperson, in conclusion, I wish to extend our appreciation to all the staff and senior management officials in the department for their contribution.
We must recognise that hundreds of home affairs officials work tirelessly to keep this department operational but that so much more could be done to support and improve the delivery of services to the people of our country.

Mbalula must tell Parliament why R118 million was wasted on Commonwealth bid

The DA will today write to the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Sport and Recreation, Ms Beauty Dlulane, to request that she summon the Minister of Sport and Recreation, Mr Fikile Mbalula, to appear before Parliament and account for the R 118 million which was wasted during South Africa’s bid to host the Commonwealth Games in 2022.
Minister Mbalula must, therefore, account to Parliament as to why he chose to ignore the very obvious signs that South Africa was simply not financially ready to host this event and provide a detailed breakdown of the costs that were incurred during the bidding process.
Yesterday it was reported that Durban lost the right to host the Commonwealth Games in 2022. This news also means that the R 118 million that was spent on the bidding process was all in vain.
The DA continuously warned the EThekwini Municipality, Minister Mbalula and SASCOC that the Commonwealth Games were too expensive and that South Africa simply does not have the financial means to host it.
All of these parties should have known that South Africa could not afford to host the Games when South Africa failed to meet several deadlines to present an adequate budget. South Africa was able to spend R 4 billion, which was not nearly enough to host the event.
SASCOC also failed to conduct a proper financial impact assessment to calculate the cost and benefits of Durban hosting the games, meaning that South Africa had no idea what the true financial impact of the games would have been on the country.
The entire bidding process was doomed from the start. South Africa was ill-prepared and underfinanced.
However, the numerous warning that the games would not be financially viable were repeatedly ignored and as such R 118 million of public funds have been wasted.
Millions of young South Africans are desperate to find financial assistance in order to educate themselves. The R 118 million could have been better spent on grass-roots sport development and on building sports fields rather than on a failed bidding process.

Confused Mbalula must scrap Commonwealth Games

Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula’s flip flop and lack of clear direction on Durban’s intention to host the 2022 Commonwealth games is enough reason to scrap the event.
The prognosis is simple, South Africa can not afford to host such an expensive sporting event. Limited fiscal space, low economic growth and growing unemployment, especially among the youth, require that resources are spent on expanding opportunities for our lost generation.
Prioritising a sporting event over jobless South Africans will simply be a betrayal of the worst kind.
In a 2016 Parliamentary reply, Minister Mbalula, did not rule out hosting the games but indicated that his Department was in the process of obtaining information from Durban on whether the City was able to host the games. Yesterday, in an about turn, he indicated that “it doesn’t look good for Durban’s hopes of hosting the games”.
Today, he released a statement in which he indicated that talks between the South African government and the Commonwealth Games Federation (CFG) were still ongoing. This is a reflection of the level of confusion within the Department of Sport and creates uncertainty over an issue which should never have been involved in at all.
The Minister needs to be honest and inform South Africans that we will no longer be hosting the games. Minister Pravin Gordhan, in his budget speech, indicated that we need to reign in on government borrowing and the widening budget deficit. If Durban goes ahead and hosts the games, budget cuts will have to be made from essential social services to free up money to fund the event.
In 2014, the city of Glasgow spent £575 million (R11,8 billion) on the Commonwealth Games. This is enough to fund all the students who have been denied funding by NSAFS for the 2017 academic year.
The DA will not stand by while scarce resources are spent on non-priority pursuits instead of the urgent need for jobs, entrepreneurial seed funding and education opportunities for our youth.