The Department of Home Affairs has reduced system downtime at Home Affairs offices, with so-called system offline errors declining by 61% year-on-year owing to ongoing digital reforms.
The department instituted targeted reforms to fix its digital foundations, including by upgrading network infrastructure, modernising front-office applications, replacing ageing equipment and eliminating single points of failure that previously left offices offline for protracted periods.
Total working time lost to system downtime declined from 35 426 hours in 2024/25 to 13 867 hours in 2025/26.
Further work is also under way to enhance real-time performance monitoring across the system.
However, progress is uneven. All nine provinces experienced significant improvements, but the Free State province saw a 79% improvement in uptime and Mpumalanga saw a 68% improvement, while the North West province only saw a 41% improvement.
