The department of home affairs has embarked on a R2,4bn, three-year project to digitise more than 350-million documents with about 90% of the funds being used to employ 10,000 unemployed young graduates to undertake the work.
Home affairs minister Aaron Motsoaledi announced the project at a briefing Thursday after having recently received confirmation by finance minister Enoch Godongwana that R500m would be available for the project in the 2022/23 financial year.
President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the project in his state of the nation address (Sona) in February.
Reducing frustrating delays
Digitisation will reduce the frustrating delays experienced in applying for unabridged birth and marriage certificates and amendments and rectification of biographic details, which require departmental officials manually search for the original documents.
“Once the records are digitised, home affairs officials will have access to them at [the] click of a button and would be able to finalise the applications instantly. This will obviate people having to come to the office on multiple occasions. Reducing the number of times a person needs to visit a home affairs office for these services will reduce queues in our offices,” Motsoaledi said.
He noted that the department of home affairs has “more than 350-million civic paper records relating to birth, marriages, deaths and amendments. The category of records date back to 1895, which necessitates care and reliable systems that will bear tolerance for the digitisation purposes. These records are in all provinces ... the bulk of which are in Gauteng, North West and the Western Cape.”
The unemployed graduates should be qualified in IT and document, information and records management, with the qualifications being obtained from institutions of higher learning. They will also receive training. Successful youth will be paid a stipend ranging from R5,000 for entry-level positions to R9,500 for technical-support level positions and R14,250 for manager-level positions.
Once the records are digitised, home affairs officials will have access to them at a click of a button and would be able to finalise applications instantly.
— Aaron Motsoaledi, home affairs minister
The project will run from November 2022 until October 2025, with the first intake of 2,000 recruits starting work on November 1. The adverts for this phase will be available from Friday. A total of 4,000 recruits will assume duty in January 2023 in the second phase and a further 4,000 will start work in April 2023.
Motsoaledi promised the recruitment process would be fair and transparent, would include people with disabilities and be accessible to unemployed young graduates throughout the country. 60% of the intake will be women.
“Parallel to the process of youth acquisition, the department is also preparing the work stations and sourcing tools required to ensure that they are able to start digitising records in December 2022,” Motsoaledi said.
Passport security
The minister also announced one of three planned measures to enhance the security of South African passports, which have been widely abused, causing difficulties for South Africans travelling abroad. From today, a passport can only be collected from the office where it was applied for and only the applicant can collect it by activating it through a fingerprint. This is a method that is being used to collect smart ID cards. For minor children, their parents or guardians will be the only ones allowed to collect their passports.
“We are aware that this will inconvenience some frequent travellers and some busy people who might not have time, but we are appealing that everybody has to be prepared to readily pay this price for the integrity of our passports,” Motsoaledi said.
He urged people to use the branch appointment booking system, which was introduced in June and has already been used by about 115,000 people. People requiring passports can also use banks to apply and collect their travel documents.
Motsoaledi also announced the removal of the exemption for a transit visa for Bangladeshi and Pakistani passport holders as from August 1. This means that all travellers using ordinary passports issued by Bangladesh and Pakistan authorities are required to apply for a visa when transiting through SA to other countries.
“The decision was informed by recent incidents wherein passengers from the two countries were caught attempting to enter into SA illegally by sneaking in through fire-hydrant passages at the airport while on the way to the transit lounge to continue to other countries. In so doing, they try to evade immigration and other law-enforcement officers at the port of entry, thus undermining the security and [sovereignty] of the state.”
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