The Minister said this when Ministers in the Peace and Security Cluster fielded oral questions at the National Council of Provinces on Tuesday.
He was responding to Democratic Alliance (DA) Eastern Cape Member of Parliament Leon Magwebu, who had asked what the department was doing to address the weaknesses that lead to foreign nationals being in the country on fraudulent permits.
“During the course of the year, we are going to introduce a number of initiatives. One of them is the electronic applications for visas and for a number of other permits to the country.
“That will enable the applicant to obtain information electronically and submit their applications and the documentation to support their applications electronically,” he said.
The Minister said the initiative would remove the need for the department to provide frontline services that tend to stretch government’s capacity. He said the initiative would also pave way for a centralised adjudication system to enable the department to take decisions quickly in terms of people’s applications.
“But we further intend to introduce an amendment to the legislation which is going to enable the department to have an independent citizenship advisory board.
“But this is only for those who are applying for citizenship once all other processes have been followed in terms of the latter of the law. So all of these initiatives are going to be introduced during the course of the year,” he said.
Meanwhile, Minister Gigaba said several initiatives were being implemented to address border line enforcement and to deal with the number of undocumented foreign nationals.
He said that the current model of cooperative border management contributes to a lack of effective and efficient border management.
In future, the Minister said that the border management authority that will be established will improve border law enforcement based on a model of integrated border management and the establishment of a single line of command and the control structure in the border environment.
Corruption at ports of entry - which leads to the facilitation of some undocumented foreign nationals entering the country – was also a challenge. The department is dealing with corrupt officials on an on-going basis, the Minister said.
To address the key challenges facing border management and border law enforcement as reflected above, there has been measures put in place, this includes:
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