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Home Affairs commits to expanding services

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The Department of Home Affairs has reiterated its commitment to making its services more accessible to the nation through a number of measures, including the procurement of mobile units to serve remote communities.

“As a department, we have invested a lot of financial resources to improve our services to our clients…

“We have introduced various interventions, including the Branch Appointment Booking System to eradicate queues, as well as the Digitisation Project, which seeks to convert paper documents to electronic by scanning them for ease of retrieval and storage.

“This financial year, we will be procuring 15 additional mobile units to complement the 110 that are already deployed across the country to provide services where clients have no access to our offices,” said Home Affairs Deputy Minister, Njabulo Nzuza, adding that the mobile units are a flagship intervention aimed at expanding the department’s footprint.

Nzuza was addressing the community of Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality during a two-day visit at the weekend. The visit took place as government marks Integrated Public Service Month.

On Saturday, the Deputy Minister – accompanied by Eastern Cape Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) MEC, Zolile Williams, as well as the Executive Mayor of the Nelson Mandela Bay, Eugene Johnson – held an imbizo with community members from Motherwell, Gqeberha and surrounding areas.

The Departments of Home Affairs, Labour, Health, Social Development, as well as the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) had deployed mobile units to provide services to approximately 2 000 clients at the imbizo.

Williams said it was imperative for CoGTA to form part of the event, as they are tasked with the responsibility of improving cooperative governance across the three spheres of government.

He said in partnership with institutions of traditional leadership, their duty is to ensure that provinces and municipalities carry out their service delivery mandate and that development happens effectively.

“This programme is crucial for it brings services to the people. Our strategic vision as Eastern Cape CoGTA is to build an effective intergovernmental relations pipeline, whose key thrust is a coordinated delivery of meaningful services to the people.

“This initiative of a services imbizo augers well with that vision,” Williams said.

Nzuza said government has a responsibility to interact on a regular basis with community members through various avenues including izimbizo, which provide a platform for issues to be raised in an unmediated fashion, with a view to finding lasting solutions.

“Of great importance to us is that we undertake this visit during Public Service Month, which serves as a reminder of what it means to serve communities and to also look at the impact government has, especially around issues of service delivery.”

Youth development

On Friday, Nzuza interacted with a wide range of stakeholders including students, traditional leaders, local government leaders, as well as members of the community in Nelson Mandela Bay.

The Deputy Minister addressed the 5th Nelson Mandela Annual Youth Convention at Nelson Mandela University in Gqeberha, where he highlighted government’s responsibility in the economic empowerment of young people, and advancing a youth agenda that promotes an innovative youth corps, capable of becoming active agents of change.

Nzuza said government has the responsibility to invest in young people through skills development that benefit the recipients and the State, which will ultimately absorb or source these skilled young people.

“It takes a certain level of skills and knowledge to play a critical role in shaping the strategic vision of government. We need to ensure that we change our outlook on skills being an out of university exercise, as we are confronted with the reality of young South Africans who remain largely unskilled.

“We must build a youth force that is able to produce products and services needed by the economy in order for them to participate in the economy. We need to build a skilled youth base that is able to compete and rise above skilled labour from [other countries],” he said. – SAnews.gov.za

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Alan Straton

Chief Cook, Bottle Washer and Broom Mechanic at MyPE
Passionate about Port Elizabeth and definitely NOT packing for Perth. Alan's ethos is epitomised in the words of Nelson Mandela; "I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the idea of a democratic and free society. If need be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die." See more articles by Alan.