Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has announced a series of interventions to cut down on long queues at Home Affairs offices, including a huge investment in their IT networks, opening branches in malls, and increasing staff.
Motsoaledi was presenting his departmental budget speech earlier this week.
He says a major issue is when their systems go offline, which contribute to delays and long queues. But millions of rand will now be spent to ensure their networks are strengthened.
He says SITA is spending R400 million revamping its entire network, having just completed a procurement process in that regard. This revamp will be concluded in the third quarter of this financial year.
He adds while the Department is in the process of building new branches, relief will be provided from September by setting up temporary branches in selected malls, including Tygervalley Shopping Centre.
The Department has also been awarded R266 million which will help push their staffing level to at least 42% by hiring an additional 764 employees. 517 of these employees will be front office staff and 288 will be new immigration officers.
Read the Minister’s full speech detailing all the interventions HERE.
Mini Plenary, Vote 5: Home Affairs, 24th May 2022 https://t.co/jyd8k6suVk
— Parliament of RSA (@ParliamentofRSA) May 24, 2022
[Read] Revamping government’s internet network, increasing the department’s internet capacity and roping in specialist network engineers from banks are some of the interventions that the Department of Home Affairs is implementing to deal with long queues https://t.co/dejMKajFMy pic.twitter.com/svMM3sGjK7
— @SAgovnews (@SAgovnews) May 25, 2022
