SIYABONGA SITHOLE
Johannesburg - Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has called for young people to take part in the digitisation of more than 350 million paper-based civic records of South Africans.
The minister recently launched the programme that will see the systematic maintenance of the National Population Register (NPR), including the management of birth and death certificates, marriage certificates and identity documents currently in paper format. Some of these outdated records date back as far as 1895, the minister said.
Motsoaledi said the project to digitise all the country's civic records has been commissioned to enable the department to move from paper-based format to digital record keeping. This would make the work of the department simpler and accessible to citizens who sometimes have to be turned away a number of times before they are able to get assistance, he said.
"Officials from the department have to access your records manually and you cannot arrive at the offices and say you want to change or amend parts of your details and it gets done.
“The officials have to first go back to where we keep the records and manually search for your records and only then are you able to get assistance.
“Sometimes they have to drive to where we keep these records and it takes a very long time for officials to access the records and help you amend aspects that need to be amended.
“So this process will help us simplify this and make it easier for us to deliver quality services, "Motsoaledi said.
It is believed that the programme will also help create much-needed jobs, especially for young people who are facing the country's worsening youth unemployment as the project seeks to attract young people between the ages of 18 and 35 years of age.
"As such, the department plans to convert all such records through digitisation of hard copy records to electronic format for easier holding and storage.
“The secondary objective is to contribute to youth employability and employment creation through the Presidential Youth Employment Initiative (PYEI) by acquiring unemployed youth on a fixed term contract basis to assist with the digitisation of our records,” Motsoaledi said.
The Star