South Africa Home Affairs requests $618M budget to advance digital transformation

South Africa’s Minister of Home Affairs Leon Schreiber has tabled a budget request of 11 billion rand (about US$618 million) for the advancement of the department’s digital transformation ecosystem for the 2025/2026 fiscal year.

Schreiber said in a budget vote speech recently that the allocation will enable them operationalize the switch to Smart IDs and carry on with many other reforms in the civil service, immigration and border management sectors, among others.

In the speech, the minister cited many reforms which have taken place within Home Affairs in the last year, stating that “we have not only laid a foundation for these reforms, but we are already seeing visible progress across all parts of this ecosystem.”

Among other things, Schreiber explained efforts to issue digital ID cards and to dramatically scale up access to the critical identity document and immigration reforms. Those reforms include a new ETA system that will go live for tourists by September, support for the Border Management Authority (BMA) to effectively facilitate the movement of people and goods across the country’s ports, as well as government printing works which he says “has a vital contribution to make on this journey of digital transformation.”

“From Smart IDs to Digital ID at home and abroad, to ePassports, the ETA, the Trusted Tour Operator Scheme, new visa schemes for the film industry and events as well as support for driver’s license printing, the Home Affairs ecosystem is set to reach even greater heights in the second year of our reform journey,” the minister told lawmakers. Home Affairs had planned to issue at least 2.5 million smart ID cards with some of the funds of its 2024/2025 budget.

Per Schreiber, the proposed budget increase for the coming financial year aims principally to support the BMA and preparations for the country’s 2026 local government elections. That notwithstanding, he said, “we will continue to work on self-financing and alternative revenue sources to unlock greater investment and accelerate our digital transformation efforts.”

“Digital transformation is at the heart of the BMA’s work, as it focuses on automating entry-and-exit at all ports of entry, including through an upgraded Advanced Passenger Processing system, and operationalizing advanced targeting centres to enhance intelligence gathering and data analysis,” said Schreiber.

The Home Affairs department sees itself as the nucleus of South Africa’s digital transformation and digital government journey, and is poised to see the country become a fully digital nation in the next few years. This includes an envisaged fully functional digital ID system by 2029.

Recently, Schreiber also explained the motivation behind a hike in ID verification fees for an upgraded national Online Verification Service (OVS) that went operational on July 1.

Home Affairs announced this week that it had successfully onboarded government’s entire justice cluster to the upgraded platform, with about 180,000 verification transactions completed daily.

The department said it is also putting in place “additional measures” to ensure cost effective fees for clients that have been slow to optimize their usage and are therefore not able to immediately take advantage of the new low-cost off-peak alternative.

Article Topics

Africa  |  biometrics  |  digital government  |  digital identity  |  government services  |  identity verification  |  South Africa