Accountants and IT experts will assist the Department of Home Affairs to address problems threatening to bring the department to its knees, Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said on Thursday.
Briefing the media in Cape Town, she said a support-intervention team comprising officials from the Treasury, public service and the public service commission found that the department had serious management problems.
”We will be requesting retired accountants to come and work in the department; we will also bring in IT experts to come and have a look at our IT programmes,” she said.
Last year, Mapisa-Nqakula requested the support-intervention team after serious gaps in the management and functioning of the department were identified.
The team, which recently released its report, had found that the department’s management of human resources was one of the weakest links within the department.
The current organisational structure did not enable the department to deliver on its core responsibilities.
Mapisa-Nqakula said the weaknesses identified by the team were of such a nature that the department would need to implement a turnaround strategy for it to be able to deliver.
”It’s only an holistic approach that is going to help us achieve a lasting solution.
”We have to re-configure the whole department — we might have to redeploy certain senior managers and create other senior management positions in some sections of the department,” she said.
The department, which has received numerous qualified audit reports over the years, is currently without a director general (DG).
”We urgently need someone who will provide leadership in the implementation of the turnaround strategy,” Mapisa-Nqakula said, adding that the department would have to fill the DG position before the end of May.
She said the full task-team report would only be made available to the media after she had tabled it at the home affairs portfolio committee next week. — Sapa