The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) has set a target to digitise 25 million civic records in the 2025/26 financial year.
This was revealed by home affairs deputy minister Njabulo Nzuza, providing an update on the project during the department’s budget vote delivered before the National Council of Provinces.
Nzuza says the presidential project, announced in 2022, is the fundamental core of the DHA’s digital transformation journey.
So far, over 49 million civic records have been digitised since 2023, he stated, noting the project has also been an employment vehicle for young graduates.
“We have embarked on a journey to convert manual, paper-based files into digital records that are easily accessible by the touch of a button. This will mean we are able to effect amendments almost instantly, compared to the eight weeks it currently takes.”
The DHA’s digitisation of civic records came at the behest of president Cyril Ramaphosa, to serve as an employment vehicle for youths.
As part of the project, the department aims to digitise 350 million paper records, while providing employment to about 10 000 unemployed youth graduates.
The records being digitised relate to birth, marriages, deaths and amendments, which the DHA says date back to 1895, and necessitate care and reliable systems. They are located across all nine provinces, with the bulk in Gauteng, North West and Western Cape.
Through the project, the DHA said it wants to convert the paper-based records into an electronically-searchable format for easier handling and storage.
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