Pretoria - The month-long football frenzy might be over, but South Africans can be assured that some of the systems that added to its success will not be lost.
Transport infrastructure, health, policing, justice, finance as well as immigration services were world-class, proving to the 1.4 million visitors who converged on our shores for the biggest sporting party ever that South Africa could deliver.
The Department of Home Affairs says South Africans can still expect to score with the programmes it had implemented, as most would be retained.
Speaking to BuaNews, Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said her department had implemented a trio of measures for the World Cup, which included the Movement Control System (MCS), Advanced Passenger Processing (APP) and the deployment of Airline Liaison Officers to monitor the movement of travellers into South Africa.
The Minister said the MCS, for example, which has security features that allows officials to spot undesirables, was so successful, that it would now be extended to the remaining ports of entry to ensure that all ports have the same system in place.
"It's been very successful in that one day for instance, we looked at 11 jumbo jets that came in almost together and there were more than 4 000 people and we were able to process them within an hour.
"More than 300 people were stopped from boarding the plane from their countries and more than 200 were stopped from coming into the country when they arrived," said Dlamini-Zuma, adding that the system recorded an increase of approximately 25 percent when compared to the same period in 2009 in the number of foreigners entering the country.
She added that the APP witnessed a total number of 43 undesirables being prohibited from boarding airlines abroad to enter South Africa.
"There are things that we did which are not in legislation and we are going to take them further and entrench them in legislation like the APP. It was voluntary and we asked airlines to participate voluntarily, but because it was so successful, we are going to put it into our legislation so that every airline has to participate and not keep it voluntary," she said.
Dlamini Zuma said the training of more immigration officers will continue and they will not only be trained in how the system works, but to look at abnormal behaviour.
She added that while there were challenges such as long queues at the borders, these were due to the fact that the department had put in advanced systems and those coming into the country did not have documents that were machine readable and had to be dealt with manually, saying that working with SARS also helped unclog the movement of cars and people.
Having advanced systems in place and working with different government agencies had also helped to overcome challenges at various ports of entry.
Thirty-four air and land ports of entry, including the OR Tambo, Cape Town and King Shaka International Airports were monitored daily and the provision of early warning signals and the implementation of contingency planning for the World Cup were prioritised.
"The determination and planning that took place since we got the bid helped us succeed, including the integration of work. We worked with the South African Revenue Service (SARS) and the police at all ports of entry,"
Dlamini Zuma believes too that it was also the positive attitude of people wanting the World Cup to succeed that had enabled the department's systems to do well
