Home Affairs talks IT

By Leon Engelbrecht, ITWeb senior writer

Johannesburg, 07 Jun 2007

This afternoon is budget vote debate time for Home Affairs minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, who heads one of the country's most important, but also most dysfunctional ministries.

In her address to Parliament, she is expected to add to her 22 May announcement of a "turnaround" team to rescue the department by re-engineering its processes and placing its IT on a sound footing.

Mapisa-Nqakula may also touch on the department's efforts to fill the vacant CIO's position. Earlier this week, her spokesman, Mantshele Tau, said the deputy director-general for IT (effectively the CIO) position was still vacant, although the post was "advertised some time ago".

Tau said the hunt for a candidate was on: "Let me put it this way, the department is prioritising senior posts in terms of filling them, [and] all the critical posts are a priority from an HR [human resources] point of view."

The post has been vacant since late last year when incumbent Kgabo Hlahla resigned to start his own business.

The Home Affairs Turnaround Action Team includes private and public sector experts from a number of fields, including IT, finance, business process re-engineering and communications. It answers to Mavuso Msimang, the department's new director-general and a former State IT Agency boss.

Mapisa-Nqakula said the team had been tasked with creating a radically more efficient, customer- and business-friendly Home Affairs structure, able to fight corruption effectively, deliver services on time, and serve the needs of the population and the expanding economy.

The team includes:

* A project group to coordinate major sections of the Turnaround Action Team headed by Kevin Wakeford, former CEO of Sacob and currently economic advisor to the premier of the Eastern Cape.
* A task force from the National Treasury to assist with the establishment of sound financial processes.
* An IT panel including experts from the industry, the State IT Agency, the Department of Communications, and other private sector companies.
* A communications support and transformation element to ensure improvements in Home Affairs impact positively on the public's confidence in the department.
* The business re-engineering team, including experts from AT Kearney and its local affiliate, Fever Tree Consulting.

The group's appointment follows a damning report by a high-level intervention task team that assessed "in detail the evident weaknesses and shortcomings within Home Affairs".

"Government has taken the decision to invest substantial resources in the complete transformation of Home Affairs," Mapisa-Nqakula said at the time of the announcement.

"We are determined that this very important organ of the state should be efficient, customer-friendly and corruption-free, because it is responsible for empowering our people from their first to their last days with the correct documentation, and for supporting growth and development by enabling skilled people, tourists and investors to contribute to our economy."