Taking another step closer to the ideal of building capacity within his department, Mavuso Msimang, director-general for the Department of Home Affairs, described the role to be played by new recruit Nhlanhla Mabaso as key to the successful running of the department.

Appointed as the department's CIO, Mabaso has worked in a range of ICT sectors, including software engineering, systems administration, online databases as well as strategic consulting. He comes to Home Affairs from his seat as the head of the CSIR's open source centre. While there, he also served on the secretariat of the Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa. Famous for his decisiveness and transparency, Msimang has spent most of his tenure at Home Affairs building capacity and rooting out the “bad apples”. Speaking on the issue last year, he said that there was a clear lack of capacity within the department. “There were some bad guys in the department, but there are also lots of good guys,” he said. A process of job re-engineering by the former AT Kearney SA – now FeverTree Consulting – saw approximately 200 ‘bad guys' undergo disciplinary proceedings, with 55 of the cases ending in dismissal.

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