In a digital age where speed and efficiency are crucial, the Department of Home Affairs’ outdated infrastructure—such as offices still operating on 2Mbps connections—highlights why persistent downtime and sluggish systems are an ongoing issue, Cape {town} Etc reports.
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In an interview with Newzroom Afrika, Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber committed to addressing the issue of outdated systems, which have plagued the department with significant downtime.
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According to MyBroadBand, this commitment follows revelations that, under former minister Aaron Motsoaledi, the department lost over 136,000 hours of working time in 2023 due to system failures.
‘If there were more hours in a day, I would use them all. I am obsessed with this particular issue because it can be fixed,’ said Schreiber.
‘One of the fundamental problems is something as elementary as bandwidth. We’re sitting with offices that have 2Mbps lines in the year 2024.’
He noted that comparisons between branches with slow Internet and those with faster connections, like the Weinberg office in Cape Town with its 1Gbps line, highlighted the problem.
‘You cannot imagine the difference it makes. It solves a large majority of the ‘system offline’ challenges that we have.’
He also mentioned that he is collaborating with Communications Minister Solly Malatsi to explore how Home Affairs can enhance its efficiency through better coordination with the State Information Technology Agency (SITA).
‘It often creates a bottleneck. Home Affairs can’t solve some of these things. You have to go through SITA.’
‘So if we can get some more control over literally the Internet connections at our offices, you will see an improvement there.’
He noted that a major frustration for South Africans is the combination of system downtime and long queues at Home Affairs.
Schreiber pointed out that Home Affairs’ process design creates bottlenecks, with multiple counters leading to a single photo booth and cashier, causing significant backlogs.
Since his appointment, Schreiber has focused on tackling system downtime at Home Affairs, declaring that ‘system offline’ should be considered a swear word.
Despite significant investment by SITA in revamping Home Affairs’ network in 2022, system downtime has persisted for years.
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In January 2024, the department experienced a major outage, blaming SITA for a technical issue on its mainframe that obstructed access to the National Population Register.
Home Affairs restored its systems later the same day, following a public disclosure by the Democratic Alliance (DA).
In April 2024, former minister Motsoaledi detailed system downtime at Home Affairs offices in response to DA MP Adrian Roos.
He reported that, over the past four years, Eastern Cape offices lost 34,000 hours, Mpumalanga 17,615 hours, and offices in Gauteng, Western Cape, Limpopo, and Northern Cape lost between 12,366 and 14,680 hours each.
In total, Home Affairs offices across South Africa lost over 136,000 hours of work time.
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Picture: Darren Stewart / Gallo
