Aaron Motsoaledi was appointed as South Africa's minister of the Department of Home Affairs in May 2019.

Duties

The department is responsible for: * Maintenance of the National Population Register (the

civil registry Civil registration is the system by which a government records the vital events ( births, marriages, and deaths) of its citizens and residents. The resulting repository or database has different names in different countries and even in differ ...

), including the

recording A record, recording or records may refer to: An item or collection of data Computing * Record (computer science), a data structure ** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity ** Boot sector or boot record, r ...

of births, marriages/civil partnerships and deaths. * Issuing

identity documents An identity document (also called ID or colloquially as papers) is any document that may be used to prove a person's identity. If issued in a small, standard credit card size form, it is usually called an identity card (IC, ID card, citizen ca ...

and

passports A passport is an official travel document issued by a government that contains a person's identity. A person with a passport can travel to and from foreign countries more easily and access consular assistance. A passport certifies the personal ...

. * Issuing

visa Visa most commonly refers to: *Visa Inc., a US multinational financial and payment cards company ** Visa Debit card issued by the above company ** Visa Electron, a debit card ** Visa Plus, an interbank network *Travel visa, a document that allows ...

s for visitors to South Africa (although visa applications pass through embassies or consulates which are part of the

Department of International Relations and Cooperation The Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) is the foreign ministry of the South African government. It is responsible for South Africa's relationships with foreign countries and international organizations, and runs South A ...

). * Managing

immigration Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, a ...

to South Africa and

naturalisation Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-citizen of a country may acquire citizenship or nationality of that country. It may be done automatically by a statute, i.e., without any effort on the part of the in ...

of permanent immigrants. * Handling refugees and

asylum seeker An asylum seeker is a person who leaves their country of residence, enters another country and applies for asylum (i.e., international protection) in that other country. An asylum seeker is an immigrant who has been forcibly displaced and m ...

s in South Africa. * Controlling

ports of entry In general, a port of entry (POE) is a place where one may lawfully enter a country. It typically has border security staff and facilities to check passports and visas and to inspect luggage to assure that contraband is not imported. Internatio ...

at land borders, seaports and airports.

Budget

In the 2010 national budget, the department received an appropriation of 5,719.6 million

rand The RAND Corporation (from the phrase "research and development") is an American nonprofit global policy think tank created in 1948 by Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces. It is finan ...

, and had 9,375 employees.

Criticisms

A report by the country's Public Service Commission found that the Department of Home Affairs accounted for 22 of the 260 financial misconduct cases for national departments in 2008/9. In May 2010 it was reported that the Department of Home Affairs had not paid its bill to the Government Printing Works, leading to a delay in the issuance of new passports, and that the department faced lawsuits from "people erroneously declared dead, people whom they failed to issue with identity documents and others arrested after their IDs were used in a fraudulent manner". In the same year, the department was being sued for for various breaches of terms and contracts. There have been reports of corruption within Home Affairs. In February 2010 the department closed one of its

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Dem ...

offices due to corruption, and in the same year, a number of officials and staff members appeared in court for alleged corruption and bribery. In January 2011 the department was criticised for its inefficiency, particularly in regard to processing documents. ''Eye Witness News'' reported that it would take two years to process visa requests from Zimbabwe citizens applying for work and study permits. ''

The Sowetan ''The Sowetan'' is an English-language South African daily newspaper that started in 1981 as a liberation struggle newspaper and was freely distributed to households in the then apartheid-segregated township of Soweto, Johannesburg, Gauteng ...

'' reported in January 2011 that a South African citizen has unsuccessfully tried to attain an identity document for four years.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Department Of Home Affairs (South Africa)

Home Affairs An interior ministry (sometimes called a ministry of internal affairs or ministry of home affairs) is a government department that is responsible for internal affairs. Lists of current ministries of internal affairs Named "ministry" * Ministr ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

Ministries established in 1910