Home affairs writes new laws to compel its staff to work shifts The move is likely to run into stiff opposition from trade unions, which have rejected this before

Source: Business Day, 20/01/2019

The department has previously clashed with unions over its
attempts to get staff to work on Saturdays. It hopes to get around
the issue by introducing measures in a new Home Affairs Act that
will enable it to employ staff outside the confines of the Public
Service Act, acting director-general Thulani Mavuso said on
Sunday.
“We want our offices to open seven days a week, so we need to be
able to create a shift system that is in line with our
legislation. We want our immigration officers to be employed as
shift employees so they can operate 27/7 ,” he said in a telephone
interview.
The department also wants to be able to pay market-related rates
for highly specialised skills, particularly in information
technology, said Mavuso. The Public Service Act sets limits on the
pay packet of every level of employee, from cleaners to directors-
general.
Employees of the department of correctional services and the SA
Police Service fall outside the act, and are expected to work
shifts, said Mavuso.
The policy groundwork for the Home Affairs Act is laid out in the
Home Affairs White Paper, which was published in the government
gazette on Friday. However, it does not raise the labour issues
highlighted by Mavuso. The white paper also proposes a National
Identity System (NIS) Act, which will govern a new national
identity system to replace the national population register.
The NIS will incorporate the national population register, as well
as data held on the immigration and refugee status of individuals.
“In a digital age, the NIS will be the backbone of a more
integrated modern state that provides citizens and other clients
fast access to efficient services,” home affairs minister
Siyabonga Cwele said in a statement on Sunday. “It will thus be a
powerful enabler of inclusive economic development and will
drastically reduce fraud and other related crimes.”
Interested parties have until February 18 to make submissions on
the white paper. Mavuso said the department had released a
discussion document on repositioning home affairs in May 2017, and
thus considered a month sufficient time for public comments.
The white paper sets out the policy framework for a “new and
modernised” home affairs and aims to put an end to the long queues
at its front offices, staff shortages and poor infrastructure,
said Cwele.
The white paper incorporates the department’s controversial 2017
White Paper on International Migration, which proposed delinking
residency and citizenship, along with the introduction of long-
term visas based on a points system.
It also proposed establishing processing centres for asylum
seekers at SA’s ports of entry.
The new white paper says processing centres would provide for
asylum seekers’ needs and the migrants would therefore not have to
work. “The courts have granted asylum seekers the right to work
because no provision is made for their basic sustenance. This has
led to the asylum system providing irregular migrants with access
to de facto work permits, though they do not qualify under the
Immigration Act,” it says.
“Migration can be a powerful driver of domestic and regional
development, but this requires a state that has efficient systems,
professional staff and the capacity to enforce its immigration
laws,” said the minister.
Cwele said the department of home affairs’ extended office hours
between January 2-11 had been a success and had provided
reassurance that its front offices would manage next weekend’s
voter registration drive, which is expected to lead to a surge in
people applying for identity documents.
During the extended hours period, 116,404 citizens visited the
offices. The majority of these visits (88,328) were for
applications for smart ID cards and passports.
Cwele appealed to citizens to collect the 297,000 IDs from where
they had applied for them.
The department recorded a marginal increase in travellers to and
from SA between December 1 and January 15, said Cwele.
During this period, there were 6.85-million movements across SA’s
ports of entry, compared to 6.81-million in 2018, he said.
Most of the visitors were from Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Mozambique,
Swaziland, Botswana, the UK, Germany, the US, Namibia and Zambia,
he said.