The Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration expressed shock and dismay at the state of the Rustenburg Home Affairs office in the North West and called for urgent intervention.

This comes as the committee is on a week-long oversight visit to the province and Gauteng to assess the state of public services where interventions and support are needed.

The committee wrapped up its North West leg of its oversight visit on March 25, at the Rustenburg Home Affairs office.

The committee members said it witnessed the queues and state of the building, and this raised serious concerns.

It was also revealed that from February 3 until February 25, the offices had 50 hours and 25 minutes lost due to the system being down.

The reasons given for this downtime included the photo booth being offline frequently and the live capture system being offline.

Jan de Villiers, chairman of the committee, expressed shock.

“It is an absolute shock to see how many hours you lose not being able to serve people because the systems are down. This compounds all the issues we saw relating to services to people,” he said.

Noting the planned digitisation efforts for the Department of Home Affairs, he stated that there is a fundamental problem with how the IT system operates and how the software functions.

“We are also conscious of the fact that this is one of the new Minister of Home Affairs’ targets to fix and we would like to emphasise our support to have the current IT system completely reformed,” de Villiers said.

“We look forward to seeing Home Affairs at home, where South Africans can digitally access Home Affairs services from a phone or laptop, in the convenience of their home.”

The committee also flagged safety and security as a considerable challenge and heard the location of the offices compromises the safety of officials, clients, and government assets, and it is situated next to a taxi rank and liquor outlets. There has also been a frequent number of burglaries reported.

The committee was also informed that the building, which Home Affairs leases, is not compliant with occupational health and safety (OHS) standards and that members of the public and staff feel unsafe.

“Staff and asset safety are a concern due to the lack of burglar-proofing in the building,” de Villiers said.

It was also noted that the building requires urgent maintenance and the committee heard that the building's landlord does not address complaints.

The lift in the building broke in 2023 and remains non-operational. The building is not accessible to people with disabilities. Members also heard that there are no pest control services, and staff have battled infestations of rats, cockroaches, pigeons, and bats.

Apart from the fact that the Home Affairs office being in a multilevel building on a busy street, the committee said it was not ideal for providing services to customers and also poses a danger to the public and staff.

“Surely staff cannot be motivated to work when they are exposed to health and safety risks in just trying to get to their offices,” de Villiers said.

Noting plans are underway to relocate the offices to a shopping mall about five kilometres away, he assured management at the office that the committee would bring the safety concerns to the minister's attention for urgent intervention.

“The committee will ask for the urgent finalisation of the relocation of the office as safety is the primary issue. Many issues can still be resolved in time, but the safety issue is an urgent matter, and the committee acknowledges the urgency,” de Villiers said.

On Wednesday, the committee will engage with senior management in the Gauteng provincial administration at the Premier’s Office.

The administration will brief the committee on human resources, including the qualifications of senior management and disclosure frameworks, among other topics.

robin.francke@iol.co.za

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