Pretoria - Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba was forced to apologise to customers who had been at the department’s centre in Centurion since the early hours of Wednesday, but had yet to be assisted as the system was down.
He paid a surprise visit to the centre - and got more than he bargained for.
Gigaba listened to complaints of lack of professionalism and apparent laziness by staff at the centre and subsequently asked for forgiveness from the clients.
The minister promised that internal matters causing the poor service would be dealt with properly. “I will request an urgent plan from the director-general to transform this office,” he assured.
“This centre has also not yet converted into a smart ID office, and I will request an urgent plan to transform it.”
Gigaba was greeted with unacceptably long queues and a system that was offline for most of the day. The people who were in the queues informed him about the poor treatment they received at the centre on a daily basis.
Thato Montsho told the minister the staff at the centre were lazy and unprofessional.
Gigaba admitted he was shocked during the unplanned visit, which he said followed a tip-off about the poor service at the facility.
Upon arrival, the minister was astounded when clients told him they had been there since early in the morning, but had not been attended to. In fact, others said they had visited the centre numerous times without being helped.
He said most shocking was that ordinary citizens had to wait for long hours to receive service, if they got it at all. “We have reiterated to all our officials that it is important to communicate with the clients rather than just ignoring them. We have repeatedly told officials to talk to the clients when the system is down or offline,” Gigaba said.
But a frustrated client, Maria Mangoele, said she arrived at the centre at 8am and had waited there with no assistance until well after lunch time. “It is now after 2pm and no one has even bothered to explain to us what the matter is,” she said.
Passport supervisor at the centre Pakiso Mohlolo said she had tried her level best to explain to the clients that the system was down, but they wouldn’t listen.
The sentiment was also echoed by office manager at the centre Nikiwe Chinkan who said she also tried to explain to clients the system was not working, but was not successful because of the commotions that ensued.
But Gigaba reprimanded her and said she must do her job properly. “You were trained to communicate with the clients regardless of the situation; you have to make them understand whether the system is offline or not,” he said.
Deputy director Vusumuzi Mkhize acknowledged that the centre had problems, but said the main cause of this were Telkom lines.
But another client Debbie Stanbury pointed out she had been there for the whole day for a service that didn’t require a connection. She said the problem at the office was that only one person was available to help clients at a time while the rest did nothing.
Joe van Tonder said he had been to the office several times just to solve one problem. “I came here at 11am and am yet to be assisted,” he said.
To assist those who couldn’t be helped at the Centurion centre, Gigaba organised transport for them to be taken to the city centre.
Among them were Mangoele and three others who wanted to complete applications that had to be done online.
And those who remained also got generous treatment, but some were sceptical, saying the good service would not continue once the minister had left the centre.
Pretoria News