11 June 2004
Madam Speaker
Deputy Speaker
Ministers
Honourable Members
Comrades and Friends
As we are celebrating the tenth year of democracy, the Department of Home Affairs is also celebrating its freedom at last. The Department of Home Affairs for the past ten years it was like a fastest car in the world but with a careless driver, believing that as from now onwards the Department will cruise smoothly like a fish in water.
Madam Speaker allow me to remind the house and all South Africans that most of the issues which we are going to raise during this debate are old issues which were not addressed during the past decade of our freedom.
Honourable members if the history of South Africa is in large part one of increasing racial divisiveness, today it can also be seen as a story of eventually- a journey through massive obstacles towards the creations, from tremendous diversity of a single nation who's dream of unity and common purpose is now capable of realisation. Immigration in South Africa is old as the country itself. Although not well documented the Khoi-San community are the first people to meet earliest immigrants led by Jan Van Riebeck. History informs us that before then modern human beings had lived in South Africa more than ten thousand years, hence we are so rich in archaeological findings.
The significant of immigration.
Many countries benefits from immigration in terms of skills that are lacking in certain fields. South Africa is no exception. Today we benefits from the migration of Cuban doctors to our country. In sport, our soccer today is hosting a number of African players who come from different African countries who contribute significantly to the rising standard of our football. This is also true with other fields of specialisation in which we lack expertise.
In most cases the migration of people from our neighbouring countries to the Republic of South Africa is not necessarily reaping our resources off, but they come into the country to sell products of their own making whether be pottery or garments. With the money they have gained in their sales, they buy South African goods, which they cannot get from their countries. This help to grow our economy and create new job opportunities for our people.
Immigration Act.
Madam Speaker we welcome the announcement made by the honourable Minister of Home Affairs that immigration Act will be amended so that its implementation could be possible. Our immigration policy should be to address the shortage of skills in critical areas of our economy and attract investors that we need as a country. In general it should be able meet the challenges of the modern globilising world.
Border Control.
The issue of border control need to be looked into again. This is so because we need to move away from the old way of doing things into a new way of control of movement of people. A control that is based and informed by our human rights ethos of our democracy.
The problem that we are facing today, as the department is that our border post are not linked to the mainframe of the department. Our systems are outdated and need to be rewritten. This makes things difficult to control in and out movements of people. Sophisticated criminals are able to use our border posts because they have realised this problem. They are able to enter the Republic without being detected. By the time we access the record of the individual he or she has already disappeared within the country.
The present borders of our countries in Africa are colonial borders. When these borders were made, the European colonisers had total disregard of our communities. You will find in most cases blood relatives are divided into three different countries. The classic example of this is isizwe sakwa Mahlalela abanye base Mozambique, abanye base Swaziland, abanye base Mpumalanga Province lapha Emzansi Afrika. Isizwe sakwa Tembe abanye base Mozambique, abanye ba-Kwazulu-Natal lapha Emzansi Afrika. This situation is not the exception of the north east of the country but is replicated in almost all the border posts of our country.
Kuzozonke lezindawo zalomphakathi esengiphawule ngazo ngaphezulu, ibanga ongalihamba, ungazihambela ngezinyawo aludingi ngisho nezokuthutha. Kodwa -ke, lemiphakathi uma kufanele ihambele imindeni yayo, noma imicimbi, noma ukuyogcina amasiko yayo wendabuko kuba umanko, ngenxa yemingcele kanye namasango yemingcele akude kunabo. Ngqongqoshe isifunda saseMpumalanga kanye namaphethelo siyakunxusa futhi siyakucela ukuba kulesango elibizwa ngokuthiwa yiMbuzini Channel kufanele livuselelwe futhi kufakwe nezensiza ukunqanda ubelelesi nenkohlakalo kulelisango.
In Limpopo Province there is also a gate situated inside Kruger National Park called Pafuri Gate, honourable Minister we also recommend that something must be done or to re-enforce security because kuyavuza-vuza vala ngodaka. It is alleged that lot of atrocities are taking place there such as the following things:
In terms of human trafficking through the fence is happening daily. Illegal crossings of illegal persons occur within a distance of two Kilometres from physical border post.
Every time during the beginning of school calendar year, we experience high enrolment of learners in schools near the border post areas. The majority of those learners happen to come from our neighbouring countries and receive schoolbooks from the republic of South Africa. Most of those learners will disappear with the end of the first term.
Just little more than three weeks ago the Federation of International Football awarded us the right to host the mother of all sports events the Soccer World Cup. This has increased pressure on us to get our systems in order to receive many guests from all over the world. This will not be possible if we do not have adequate Information Technology { IT } Infrastructure. This is critical for our security agencies to be able to detect all undesirable person and stop them from entering our country.
Lindela Detention centre.
This detention centre is meant to act as a detention centre for those found to be in the country illegally. The aim of the department of Home Affairs was not to have those people treated in an inhumane manner. However the current practices does not reflect our democratic ethos and human rights culture that is a corner stone of our constitution. This contribute to the xenophobic tendencies within our communities.
There are no proper accounting system, this give opportunity to the corrupt officials to abuse public resources for their own selfish individual interests. Our transportation system that we use to repatriate the illegal immigrants is not adequately monitored. It is alleged that by the time the train that is transporting them reach its destination more than half of those transported are back in the streets of Johannesburg. This is like a revolving door syndrome. We need to consider other more productive means of preventing the illegal immigrants from coming back.
There are number of options that we will have to consider. Among them are the following things.