Cape Town - The Department of Home Affairs has urged parents to register their children within 30 days of birth.
The department tabled its annual report to Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs on Wednesday. It had received a clean audit from the Auditor General.
Addressing the media after the presentation, Director General in the department, Mkuseli Apleni, called on parents to register their children soon after birth.
He said that of the estimated 1.2 million children born each year in the country, the department had registered 946 000 at birth in the previous financial year.
A total of 192 hospitals had now been connected to the department's online system to register children at birth.
Regarding the department's annual report, Apleni said they had adopted a zero tolerance approach towards corruption. In the 2010/11 period, they had managed to identify 250 cases and dealt with 108 of that total.
He said they would continue to identify and deal with new cases as they arise.
The department continued to improve its image through the refurbishment of its offices across the country. Twenty-four offices had been upgraded and 15 more were set to get a better look.
The duplication of IDs [identity documents] remained a challenge for the department, citing that 84 500 such cases had been identified. It was now in the process of trying to track 37 000 cases of people who were sharing IDs.
Regarding illegal foreigners in the country, Apleni said they had deported 55 000 foreigners in the past financial year. The department was aiming to close the Zimbabwe Documentation Project by the end of the month.
Under the programme, 275 000 Zimbabweans had applied for documentation by December 2010.
About 132 000 of the applications had been adjudicated, while the department was in the process of sending text messages to other applicants to supply their passports and get their permits.
In some cases the applicants were not responding to the text messages.
