The Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs has continued to consider the Electoral Amendment Bill and resolved that at its next meeting it will make substantive decisions on the Bill to enable the legal support team to draft the Bill for the committee to consider. 
 
 In a statement the committee said it took this resolution to enable the Minister of Home Affairs time to consult with the department’s legal team on contentious areas. 

 

Following a report-back from the Minister, the committee will be in a position to make concrete decisions, particularly on policy issues, such as the participation of independent candidates in one or multiple regions and the quantum and instrument to be used to calculate seats. 
 
 The committee must also make substantive decisions on the areas of consensus. These substantive decisions are required by the legal experts who are supporting the committee to draft the Bill for the committee’s consideration. 
 
 Meanwhile, the committee has resolved that it will at its next meeting receive an initial summary of a report by the Ministerial Committee established to review all permits and visas issued since 2004. 

 

This will be followed by an in-depth report in a full-day session during Parliament’s next session. The committee is of the view that the initial session will assist in empowering Members of Parliament with information to prepare for this session. The committee considers this Ministerial Committee report as necessary in the process of addressing any loopholes within the country’s immigration legislation. 
 
 Regarding the report on the investigation into the IT crash at the Government Printing Works (GPW) that led to a loss of data, the committee called for the full implementation of the panel’s recommendations. This will ensure accountability for the crash and put preventative measures in place to guard against a similar event in the future. The report confirms some of the governance and ICT challenges highlighted by the committee during its various interactions with the GPW. 
 
 Secure GPW data is critical, particularly in light of the goal of making the GPW a leading service provider in secure printing. To this end, the full implementation of recommendations will go a long way to affirm GPW as a leader in the field. 
 
 The committee expressed its concern that critical IT infrastructure was not maintained to industry standards and that an off-site data repository was not in place, as per industry regulations. The committee called for effective consequence management against officials still within the GPW, as well as those who have left the agency. 
 
 The committee demanded a comprehensive implementation plan of the recommendations, as well as a risk mitigation strategy aimed at ensuring that the incident does not happen again.