Windhoek
Minister of Home Affairs and Immigration Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana has appealed to her staff not to allow the successful N$126,3 million turnaround strategy she introduced last year to die a natural death when the project is concluded in December.
“It can’t die. I can’t imagine it dying. We’ve spent a lot of money and energy to make this project successful. It has taken root within us and the moment it flops, the public will know and take us to task. Currently the public is reporting back. I don’t even have any accolade to my name, other than the turnaround strategy,” she said.
The turnaround strategy was launched in May last year with the aim of transforming the ministry into a highly effective organisation with faster turnaround times, effective systems, shorter queues, efficient officers and improved customer service.
The 18-month turnaround strategy contract between the ministry and a South African company, called FeverTree Consulting, comes to an end in December, whereafter the ministry staff will be expected to take the process further without consultants.
Had the home affairs ministry not been open, willing and committed to change, they would not be where they are today, without any backlogs as experienced in previous years, the minister said.
She urged home affairs staff to devise plans to ensure the strategy is sustainable – not just for the next few months, but for the next five years.
A business improvement staff team has been embedded into the rollout teams to retain the knowledge transferred and act as ‘change champions’ at each office.
She is, however, not pleased that some senior citizens still do not have national documents, a situation that deprives them of much-needed benefits, such as monthly social grants and drought relief food.
“I’m told that to ensure drought relief is only given to the correct and deserving citizens and not to those from neighbouring countries, beneficiaries must provide national documents. It pains me that people of my age don’t have national documents. It means they don’t benefit from social grants.
“We must make sure that within the next few months these people, who don’t have documents, must be covered.”
Nonetheless, Iivula-Ithana stated that significant progress has been made in the processing of IDs and passports since June last year. She earlier stated that the passport section had a backlog of 3 342 applications as at June 2014.
By July this year, the backlog was cleared. She said, as at July 25 last year, the ID section had a backlog of 45 861 applications, but by September 10 the backlog had been cleared. She also indicated that backlogs within the visa, study permit, work permit and permanent resident permit sections have been considerably reduced and efforts are ongoing to clear the backlogs completely.
Permanent secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration Patrick Nandago also praised the staff for their achievement and urged them to ensure that continuity of the project is sustained.
“We invested a lot of money and that investment made a significant impact in service delivery and that has been acknowledged. What remains now is the sustainability of that investment. We must ensure it does not go to waste,” he said.