Cape Town - Government intends doing away with late registrations of birth barring exceptional cases, Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini- Zuma said on Thursday.

Briefing the media at Parliament on the national population registration campaign - to be launched next week - she said the department hoped to have registered the majority of children born in South Africa on the National Population Register within a year.

“Further, we aim to make certain that every South African citizen is in possession of a South African ID book with information that is verified and secure.

“Through this massive registration drive, we aim to reach our ultimate objective that secures the integrity of the National Population Register, South Africa’s biggest and most important database of citizen information.

“As the registration of a birth is the first step in the citizens’ journey our campaign starts here,” Dlamini-Zuma said.

Birth registered 15 years later

South Africa had a large number of children under the age of 15 whose births had not been registered, and as such had no official status in the country or in the population register. Research showed that the majority of people who did not have birth certificates were those between the ages of one day and 18 years.

A large number of people ended up registering a late birth, in a process known as late registration of birth, whereby people registered for birth when they were 15 years or above.

“This is a process we want to do away with by the end of 2011,” she said.

“While we have put in place a very strenuous new process to vet all late registrations of birth, the process is still open to abuse by those wishing to fraudulently obtain South African citizenship.”

Integrity of citizenship

Non-registration of birth also had a negative impact on the quality of the National Population Register and negatively impacted on government planning for services and infrastructure.

“Apart from our concerted effort around the registration of births we will also encourage young people to apply for an ID as soon as they reach the qualification age of 16 years.

“For our campaign to be successful we need a buy-in and an active participation of every South African because this is about much more than just ensuring enabling documents for every citizen.

“This campaign ultimately is about ensuring the integrity of our country’s citizenship - a key element of national security in defence of our freedom and democracy,” Dlamini-Zuma said.

- SAPA