N$543m for home affairs, immigration

N$543 million has been budgeted by the Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration to manage the national population register, the facilitation of lawful migration and the protection of refugees and asylum seekers. According to Minister Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana this will in turn lead to quality service delivery to the public, and the gathering of the demographic information that government needs for planning purposes. Iivula-Ithana made these remarks last week during her budget motivation speech in parliament. One of the priorities for the ministry for this financial year is to forge ahead with its plans to construct a new head office in Windhoek. Currently its office is located next to the Office of the Prime Minister, and it shares offices with the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology. According to Iivula-Ithana the ministry has acquired a site for the construction of the head office to ensure that it will have convenient space for both staff members and the public. According to her the ministry is decentralising to the regions and the construction of the //Karas and Oshana regional offices, as well as the Omuvelo waKashamane border post in the Okalongo Constituency of the Omusati Region are expected to be completed within the first quarter of this financial year. The construction of the phase two of staff accommodation at Omuvelo waKashamane, the ministry’s regional offices in Kunene and Zambezi will commence during the second quarter of this year. Iivula-Ithana said that an amount of N$480 million is budgeted for operational activities, while N$63 million is earmarked for the development projects of the ministry. In terms of operational expenditure, an amount of N$10 million has been allocated for mobile registration, while N$126 million has been put aside for the turnaround strategy and its implementation. An amount of N$109 million has been allocated for civil registration, with the main purpose of the programme being the management of the national population register, which contains birth, identity document, marriage and death records. Furthermore N$34 million has been budgeted for the processing of visas, permits, passports and citizenships. The Automation of Aliens System is to be maintained and further rolled out to the regional offices. Applicants will be entered into a computerised system which will enhance speedy and accurate service delivery. An amount of N$109 million has been budgeted for immigration and border control. More ports of entry will be opened. Iivula-Ithana said the issuing of national documents and the coverage of birth registration now stands at 91%, while death registration is at 89%. She said the ministry has successfully managed to automate all historical birth records and all regional offices are accessing this data on M-file. Furthermore the National Population Registration System has been reviewed and upgraded with more advanced features and the Namibian Automated Fingerprint Identification System that has been successfully commissioned.