Home Affairs rebuild gathers pace

By Leon Engelbrecht, ITWeb senior writer

Johannesburg, 08 Aug 2007

The Home Affairs Turnaround Action Team (TAT) has wrapped up a countrywide public perception survey on frontline service delivery to inform process re-engineering at the state department.

"The survey will help us create better offices, better systems and better service as we improve service delivery to the people and build the 'new' Home Affairs," says TAT project manager Jacob Mamabolo.

Process re-engineering is one of several steps being taken by the TAT to rebuild the Home Affairs department. The restructuring also includes an investment in workflow automation and ICT technology.

Home Affairs director-general Mavuso Msimang has previously said the department's workflow is still largely paper-based, with minimal details recorded on computer. The department further lacks secure server rooms, has no disaster recovery in place other than for the Home Affairs National Identification System and suffers from "dirty data". In most places, files are simply stored in piles on the floor, Msimang added.

Part of the TAT's mandate is to decide what of the existing IT must be upgraded, what must be replaced and what the optimum level of interoperability is.

Customer-centred service

Combined teams of researchers from the department, market research firm Markinor and consultants from the TAT have now interviewed clients in all nine provinces. This feedback baseline, officials say, will be used to re-engineer key internal processes in order to significantly enhance the ability of the department to deliver services and contribute to economic growth.

"The ultimate aim is to devise a customer-centred service that is fast, efficient and reliable. This information will help us enormously in our aim of designing a whole new set of customer services principles for the 'new' Home Affairs," adds Mamabolo.

Msimang has ambitions of having an IT system providing a "single view of the citizen" and of foreign visitors in place by 2010, when his three-year tenure at the department ends.

"That is a must and very 'do-able'," the former State IT Agency CEO says. "These are things that really have to happen; it depends on political will rather than the technology."