DA calls for Parliamentary intervention on ‘system offline’ issues at Home Affairs offices

11 December 2020

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has written to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs to provide adequate oversight on urgent measures needed to deal with the ‘system offline’ issue which has caused chaos at Home Affairs offices across the country.

The Eastern and Western Cape have been particularly hard hit this week with widespread systems blackouts across these provinces, including the largest offices of Bellville, Barrack Street and Port Elizabeth. These have left South African citizens queuing for hours only to be turned away as the system is offline.

Since South Africa moved to lockdown level 1 ‘systems offline’ issues have been steadily increasing, prompting the DA to submit a Parliamentary question mid-November on issues and causes experienced during October 2020. The fact that this question has missed the deadline for response shows how little Home Affairs has control over the situation and understands the extent of the problem. What cannot be measured cannot be managed.

When questioned during the recent budget vote in Parliament on the lack of budget and the impact of these system failures last week, Minister of Home Affairs, Aaron Motsoaledi, chose not to respond. The 2020/21 Home Affairs Annual Report states that connectivity challenges will be resolved in 24 months - this is simply not good enough.

The fact is this should be the number one priority of Home Affairs. On 9 December a gentleman reported travelling 50km from Pearston to Somerset East only to be informed by Somerset East Home Affairs the system is offline. Another citizen travelled to Nigel Home Affairs on five separate occasions to be told the system is offline before facing a sign that Nigel Home Affairs was offline for one week. The people of South Africa who are battling to make ends meet simply cannot afford to take this time off work and incur these wasted travel costs.

A DA government would:

Work on database replication at Home Affairs offices, as is the case with the fingerprint system at borders, to remove the complete reliance on an unrealistic expectation of 100% network uptime

Put in place a mechanism to automatically detect when offices are offline and provide information to the public to check system online before travelling

Position Mobile Units at offices that are offline for more than a day, whether it be through a ’system offline’ issue or a COVID-related shutdown

The DA writes to the Portfolio Committee as the Minister has clearly indicated that this matter is not a priority. We will continue to fight for real change at the Department of Home Affairs.

Issued by Adrian Roos, DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, 11 December 2020