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Home Affairs defends biometrics at airports

Staff Writer
By Staff Writer, ITWeb
Johannesburg, 28 Oct 2016
Home Affairs says it is continuing stakeholder engagements to improve service delivery at OR Tambo International Airport.
Home Affairs says it is continuing stakeholder engagements to improve service delivery at OR Tambo International Airport.

The Department of Home Affairs' (DHA's) efforts to modernise immigration ports of entry at some of SA's major airports has come under fire yet again, as travellers continue to face flight delays and stand in lengthy queues.

Last December, the DHA implemented biometrics capturing of travellers at four international airports, namely, OR Tambo International Airport, Cape Town International Airport, King Shaka International Airport and Lanseria.

The department says biometric capturing enhances the capacity to uniquely identify individuals and confirm the identity of travellers with the highest possible degree of certainty, security and efficiency.

Added benefits included doing away with the requirement for a transit visa for travellers using ports of entry that have biometric capacity, says the department.

To improve facilitation, the DHA decided that South African citizens would be exempted from this process.

However, limited human resource capacity at the immigration counters has hampered seamless movement of travellers intended with the introduction of biometrics at the airports.

DHA director-general Mkuseli Apleni says under capacitation remains a critical vulnerability in the management of immigration at the airport.

He explains: "The total number of immigration counters at OR Tambo International Airport is 87 and even with a 100% staff attendance not all the counters can be fully staffed. A 100% attendance is not attainable due to normal human resource factors.

"We are currently managing a four shift system per week reinforcing our day shift to deal with terminals experiencing a high volume of travellers. This still translates into a situation where more than 40% of our immigration counters cannot be operational at peak periods, given limited staff capacity and the need to balance shift operations over a 24hr cycle.

"We understand it clearly to be in our best interest to excel in facilitating the movement of travellers to enhance the perception of South Africa as a preferred destination."

According to Apleni, the biometric programme of the department remains a priority and the department is committed to a phase in approach.

"Further rollout at major land ports of entry is work in progress and by the end 2016/17, it is projected that at least six high volume ports of entry will be ready to assist travellers arriving from Southern African Development Community (SADC) states.

"Considering that 90% of all movements at land ports of entry arise from SADC nationals, the introduction of such a capability will have far reaching effects in terms of facilitating traveller movements whilst ensuring that the department has a record of foreign nationals who have entered the Republic."

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