The Department of Home Affairs has brought in experts to push the department’s turnaround strategy, Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said on Tuesday.
Briefing the media, Mapisa-Nqakula said the task team, comprising experts from both the private and public sector, would bring radical changes to the department.
”The task team has been tasked with creating a radically more efficient, customer- and business-friendly home affairs structure able to fight corruption effectively, deliver services on time and serve the needs of the population …,” she said.
The team, headed by former South African Chamber of Business CEO Kevin Wakeford, would initially see 27 full-time professionals deployed at the department.
”There will be tangible changes in home affairs by the end of this year, which all who use the department’s services will be able to experience,” Mapisa-Nqakula said.
The appointment was in line with the recommendations of a high-level intervention team that Mapisa-Nqakula had brought in last year to assess weaknesses within the department.
Mapisa-Nqakula said the task-team members, who are experts in fields ranging from information technology to finance, were from AT Kearney, an international company specialising in turnaround strategies.
”The AT Kearney/Fever Tree consortium is the only business process re-engineering company represented in South Africa with concrete experience of implementing comprehensive turnaround strategy within a state agency, as well as an international track record in the specialised field of home affairs,” she said.
The company has played a central role in the transformation of the South African Revenue Service and has assisted governments such as that of The Netherlands and the United States in re-engineering their departments. — Sapa