The Minister says his department is “reimagining” Home Affairs into a modernised and digital unit that responds to the present and future needs of the country.
The Minister on Friday tabled the department’s Budget Vote in the Old Assembly Chamber in Parliament.
“As of yesterday, close to 8 053 applicants had used eHomeAffairs (eChannel) to apply for smart ID cards and passports. To manage capacity, only applicants who are between 30 and 35 years old are able to apply through eHomeAffairs for now but this will expand as we also expand the number of participating branches,” he said.
The Minister’s announcement comes after President Jacob Zuma launched eHomeAffairs earlier this month – a pilot project where the department has partnered with SA’s four big banks to apply and pay for their smart ID cards and passports on-line and collect their documents at the bank.
The service is currently operational at 11 bank branches in Gauteng and one in the Western Cape.
The Minister said, meanwhile, that the department had issued 4.1 million smart ID cards to date. He said the department has met its target of issuing 2.2 million smart ID cards last year.
“We aim to issue another 2.2 million cards this year. Over the next few years, we must replace 38 million ID books with smart ID cards,” the Minister said.
The Minister said as part of modernising Home Affairs, the department is being reimagined into a modern unit operating in a highly secure environment to protect the citizens’ precious records.
He said Cabinet had taken a decision to fully integrate Home Affairs into the security cluster to offer four critical pillars, including enabling economic development; contributing to national security; enabling effective service delivery and supporting governance and administration.
“Reimagining Home Affairs means we must not only modernise the department but must repackage and position it firmly as a pivotal pillar for the pursuit of these four critical areas, and a reliable partner for ordinary people, government departments and the private sector in pursuit of these goals that are so central to our dreams as a nation,” he said.
He said a modern, secure Home Affairs will require a larger budget by the end of the year and that a case will be presented to Cabinet for approval.
