South Africa: New Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber's Report Card After Picking Up the Poisoned Chalice of 'Hell Affairs'

5 October 2024
Daily Maverick (Johannesburg)
By Victoria O'regan

It's assessment time for the Government of National Unity. One hundred days into Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber's tenure, how do his actions measure up against his words? Daily Maverick sat down with Schreiber, went into the field and gathered some ratings of his performance. This article is free to read.Sign up for free or sign in to continue reading.Unlike our competitors, we don't force you to pay to read the news but we do need your email address to make your experience better.Create your free account or sign in FAQ | Contact Us Nearly there! Create a password to finish signing up with us: You want to receive First Thing, our flagship daily newsletter. Opt out at any time. Please enter your password or get a sign in link if you've forgotten A code has been sent to .... Please check your email and enter your one-time pin below: Didn't get the code? Resend email Use your password instead? Enter password Open in Gmail Open Sesame! Thanks for signing up.

Listen to this article 18 min Listen to this article 18 min Leon Schreiber, like many officials in the national executive, inherited a poisoned chalice when he was sworn in as Minister of Home Affairs on 3 July.

Crippled by years of corruption, capacity constraints, political paralysis, budget cuts and other issues, the Department of Home Affairs has been stuck in a dejected state of nonstop crisis. It's no wonder that Daily Maverick coined the phase "Hell Affairs" for this defective department.

The Government of National Unity (GNU) will soon reach a milestone: the first 100 days of its existence.

Since Schreiber delivered his inaugural budget speech, he has made attention-grabbing statements about digitising Home Affairs, tackling network issues and cracking down on corruption.

He has given numerous media interviews. One can argue that Schreiber has so far been more available to the public than his predecessor, Aaron Motsoaledi.

In a recent interview at Parliament to discuss his first 100 days in office, Schreiber spoke to Daily Maverick about his digitisation agenda, and his plans to counter corruption and deal with long queues and network failures at Home Affairs offices across the country.

"I think one of the risks...

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