Home Affairs suffers IT system woes: ‘System is offline’

The infamous line ‘system is offline’ is one that South Africans are well versed in, especially when it comes to the Department of Home Affairs (DHA).

According to My BroadBand, system problems at Home Affairs offices in South Africa are causing more disruptions than power cuts.

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Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi revealed this in response to questions from Democratic Alliance MP Adrian Roos.

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THE SYSTEM IS OFFLINE: HOME AFFAIRS SUFFERS IT SYSTEM DOWNTIME

During the first quarter of the 2023–24 financial year, DHA offices were unable to operate for 15,289 hours. Surprisingly, 57% of these hours were lost due to system issues, while power cuts were responsible for 41% of the downtime.

Only 0.3% of the lost hours were due to protests, and 2% were because of water outages.

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Motsoaledi also provided data about the uptime of the DHA’s civic services system, managed by the State Information Technology Agency.

From January to March 2023, they achieved 95% system uptime, despite losing 13,416 hours across all branches during that period.

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Notably, State IT Agency (Sita) workers went on strike in October, and the impact on the DHA’s uptime remains uncertain. The phrase “the system is offline” has become common among South Africans visiting Home Affairs offices.

Nonetheless, the DHA and Sita are making efforts to address these problems and make services more accessible.

ONLY 1,146 GRADUATES HIRED OUT OF 10,000 TARGET

In other news, Motsoaledi revealed that the project aimed at employing 10,000 IT graduates to assist in digitizing civil documents is significantly behind schedule.

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As of now, only 1,146 positions have been filled, according to Motsoaledi’s response to questions from DA MP Adrian Roos.

Motsoaledi explained, “The first phase of the project recruited a total of 2,000 youth. Of these, some have received other appointments, and the number has reduced to 1,146.

The second phase is to recruit 4,000 youth, and this recruitment is underway.”