Few would have predicted that the Department of Home Affairs would be one of the few early bright spots of South Africa’s post-ANC political transition and trial-run coalition government. Yet here we are. While many eyes remain fixated on the packed-action, high drama unfolding within the Government of National Unity (GNU), Leon Schreiber is quietly doing what South Africans have begged politicians to do for years, just get on with it, without a fuss.
Schreiber has spent the past year untangling some of the state’s knottiest dysfunctions as a result of years of backlogs, corruption and failures. He’s expanded Smart ID access, cleaned up the green ID book legacy, launched a remote work visa, and cut processing delays for passports. His department is rolling out biometric systems, partnering with banks, and trialling home delivery of identity documents. Abroad, he’s expanding consular services to reduce the agonising wait South Africans face when applying for documents from foreign missions. Even the visa regime which has long been a disaster for tourism and business is finally being updated, with two targeted schemes for the film sector and events now in motion.
None of this is flashy. It’s just service delivery. But in this country, that’s quite a revolutionary sight.
A Case Study in Political Maturity
What’s striking is not just the pace of reform (when the perception is that the wheels of government always turn slow), but the attitude behind it. Schreiber doesn’t behave like a man who’s looking to score short-term headlines. He behaves like someone who knows his time in the GNU might be short, the institutions under his leadership are brittle, but importantly that results matter more than rhetoric and genuine reform is actually a possibility. That shouldn’t surprise anyone who read Coalition Country, his 2018 book laying out the political future we now inhabit. Long before the ANC dipped below 50%, Schreiber warned that South Africa was headed for a period of fractured governance. Instead of lamenting this as a threat to stability, he proposed a roadmap for turning coalitions into functional arrangements focused on achieving practical results.
It turns out, he’s now one of the few putting that theory into practice.
It’s far too early to call Home Affairs a smashing success story. Much of the progress is still very much surface-level progress. The department’s baseline funding for 2025/26 is R11 billion which is not nothing, but hardly a war chest when your mandate includes border control, identity security, and international migration. Many Home Affairs branches still lack basic infrastructure as we’ve all frustratingly experienced personally. And digitisation can only go so far in our country which is still largely dependent on face to face consultations. But it’s a good start and a contrast with many other GNU ministers.
Still, the progress we’ve seen isn’t trivial. It’s a reminder that good governance doesn’t require perfect conditions and that South-Africans when there is a legitimate effort to do good and serve that there will be praise. It requires clarity of purpose, competent management, and the political will to focus on delivery. He is showing by example that coalition government doesn’t have to be chaos. It can be functional, focused, and even reformist.
Why This Matters
We all know that the GNU is not a comfortable arrangement, far from it. It was born out of necessity, not shared vision and ideology. The DA and ANC distrust each other. The IFP, PA, and smaller parties have regional priorities. In this environment, every major portfolio is a potential landmine. From the GNU’s get go the question was could parties set aside ideology long enough to govern a broken state?
Schreiber’s example suggests they can if they just do it and get to work.
Schreiber’s reforms may not be explicitly ideological, but they reflect broadly the DA’s approach to governance. He’s promoting individual agency through secure, accessible IDs. He’s enabling economic participation through smarter visa regimes. And he’s leveraging public-private partnerships to bypass the bottlenecks of state dysfunction. It’s liberal pragmatism and a recognition that the state must work with the market and civil society to deliver outcomes the state alone cannot manage.
That’s a useful lesson for the GNU, and one that should inform broader reform across government.
Two Policy Ideas for a Functional State
If Schreiber’s department is to become a sustainable model for long-term governance under coalition conditions, then two further reforms deserve serious attention:
1. Expand Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) for Core Services
The collaboration between Home Affairs and South African banks to process Smart ID and passport applications has already shown great promise. It bypasses decaying government infrastructure and makes use of institutions that already have secure, well-staffed branches. This model could be further expanded. Why not involve retail pharmacies or large logistics firms in the distribution of official documents? Why not let certified private couriers manage passport delivery under secure conditions? If they can courier my bank card securely, surely they can courier my smart ID. This will lead to a more streamlined approach and greater efficiency.
2. Introduce Targeted Tax Incentives to Bring Skilled South Africans Back
While much attention has been paid to immigration reform and border security, there’s another underused lever in the policy toolbox: the South African diaspora. Hundreds of thousands of skilled South Africans, engineers, doctors, teachers, IT professionals, are living and working abroad, often frustrated by local conditions but unwilling to return to a country where their qualifications are underutilised, their earnings overtaxed, and their children’s futures uncertain.
South Africa would benefit immensely from getting them back.
A targeted tax incentive, for example, a five-year income tax rebate or deferral scheme for returnees in key sectors, would signal that the state values their expertise. It wouldn’t need to be open-ended or unlimited. It could be capped by income, tied to sectors facing verified shortages in need of skilled professionals, and conditional on registration with recognised professional bodies.
Other countries do it or have done it, like Portugal, Ireland, even Rwanda. They recognise that the cost of skilled emigration is not just economic, but civic: when the middle class leaves, it weakens the tax base, the professional networks, and the collective institutional strength of a country.
The Bigger Picture
In conclusion, Leon Schreiber is not going to save the GNU if it, like many suggest, is going to end. But his work shows what’s possible when the politics of performance are replaced by the politics of delivery. Coalition government, for all its flaws, doesn’t have to mean paralysis. More importantly it can’t because South Africa will likely not return to a majority government anytime soon.
As the country continues to stumble toward a new political era, we should celebrate and acknowledge when things do look like they are starting to work, even if it is only for now.
