While home affairs IT systems have become synonymous with the “offline” tagline, this can’t be the case in the age of technological advancements, such as artificial intelligence. So said newly-appointed homeaffairs minister Dr Leon Schreiber, delivering his maiden budget vote in Parliament yesterday. The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) experiences interruptions and network downtime issues more often than not, with the blame sometimes placed on government IT agency SITA’s doorstep.

Furthermore, the DHA – whose core function is to manage the identity, civil status and migration of citizens – has to contend with snaking queues at branches and the illegal practice of blocking slots in queues to resell to members of the public, among other issues. As a result, ensuring a stable online system is an urgent priority, said Schreiber. “It is unacceptable that, in the year 2024 and in the age of artificial intelligence, we still do not have a reliable IT system at home affairs.

“The days of ‘systemoffline’ need to come to an end, because I want to be the minister of ‘systemonline’. In order to achieve this, we need to embrace modern technologicalsolutions. “One of the options under consideration is the recommendations from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to optimise the department’s IT infrastructure network.

” In addressing the system downtime challenge, the minister reported that the first set of offices have been upgraded to fib.