All of us should be worried about the credibility of the population register. Here’s why

Lumka Oliphant, a senior manager at the department of social development, discovered through a government system demonstration that a child she does not know was registered under her name. This revelation raises concerns about the credibility of the population register and the potential professional and personal implications for her, including the impact on her estate and possible misuse of government benefits. The incident underscores the urgent need for integrated government systems to ensure accurate information, fight corruption, and protect the nation’s resources. She narrates her experience.

I have a third child I do not know about. This is according to the department of home affairs.

This child was born 19 months before I gave birth to my firstborn. He was born on January 16 2001. 

I got this new information about my personal life when colleagues working for the Integrated Justice System (IJS) and placed in the department of social development (DSD) for the integration of systems of government were demonstrating their case management system. This system aims to track and trace a person’s identification and verify with government departments.

The name of this child closely resembles my name with just two letters that are different. He has my surname, Oliphant. 

My biological children use their paternal surname, and their father’s details are on their unabridged birth certificates.

When we looked closer at this case, there was no photo attached on home affairs's system for 23 years. A red flag. 

Of course, this was shocking and worrying to me. We may think this is a minor issue, but it is not. It is big, and all of us should be worried about the credibility of our population register.

For me, this information has both personal and professional implications. The worst of them being me dying and how that could affect my estate.

The thought of my children having the burden of proving that I had no child born in 2001 sends shivers down my spine. 

I know that the master of the high court has access to the home affairs database, and this could negatively affect my estate. 

Professionally, my ID number could be appearing on the list of people receiving a grant for this child illegally, or this person could be getting other government benefits because he appears to be born of a South African woman. 

That woman is me, Lumka Oliphant, senior manager at the department of social development.

Upon receiving this information, I immediately called my colleagues at home affairs to confirm and verify this child. 

Most importantly, I wanted to test if, indeed, this system dispatched by the IJS is working and is accurate. 

The few hours I had to wait for home affairs to verify this information were the most stressful. 

My worst fear was confirmed. 

Indeed, there is a child registered under my name with the department of home affairs. 

As a country we have been talking about making sure that we integrate our systems and place social development at the centre of this integration, but this has been moving at a snail’s pace. 

This case proves we need to speed up this process. 

The introduction of the R370 Covid-19 SRD grant is a good case in point that we must forge ahead as DSD so that we can deliver services timeously while fighting corruption and protecting the fiscus. 

It has always been the assertion of my colleagues that if we get social development right, we will get many things right in this country. 

One of these things being the minister of social development being able to account for every child wherever they are in this country. She must have a bird’s-eye view of all children at the click of a button. 

Earlier this year just before the National Senior Certificate results were announced, I wrote an oped that the department of social development has started this process and in the future we want to be able to tell you why some of the children who start in grade 1 do not make it to grade 12. 

I just did not know that this was going to come sooner, thanks to the IJS programme dispatched to the department of social development. 

You may ask yourself how we were able to do this and what this information entails? 

This information must be able to give us every detail about every child and every citizen.

For social development, we must be able to know when a teenager is pregnant and what services this teenager is receiving. 

We must be able to know why so many children at Sassa have no fathers, but may have them at the maintenance court, by simply having integrated systems. 

For a long time, we have placed the burden of looking for delinquent fathers on the woman when we can have access to Sars and the department of labour and employment to check what information appears there. 

We are doing this for the R370 grant, but it takes a long time to verify this information because we must wait for sister departments to confirm it. 

This is going to be a thing of the past because we have signed MoUs with the departments of basic education, health, higher education and training, employment and labour, co-operative governance, Sassa, , the National Development Agency, SITA and the Realisation of National Social Protection Information System to achieve this. We are going to interface with this data to make the right decisions. 

The office of the auditor-general wants accountability and the National Treasury wants comfort that every person receiving a grant is deserving. South Africans want us to fight corruption, deliver services timeously, and protect the fiscus. 

If this system of the IJS with DSD is supported fully, we will solve many of this country’s problems.

• Lumka Oliphant is a senior manager at the department of social development. The article was originally published here