Durban - Citizens who need help from the Department of Home Affairs should brace themselves to spend up to 20 hours queueing, ensure they don’t need the toilet, bring a chair and a packed lunch. Even then, the chances of being helped by “Horror Affairs”, as it is now being dubbed by the public, are small.
A Daily News team spent several days speaking to people in queues at Home Affairs offices across eThekwini and, everywhere, the story was the same. People were waiting… and waiting… and waiting. And when they finally got inside… the computers would be down, and they would wait some more.
This is in spite of the department upgrading its software for the new smart IDs (meant to speed up the process) and extending its hours.
The Daily News visited offices in Prospecton, Pinetown, the Durban CBD and Umgeni Road and, in addition to software problems, established that:
* Despite opening its doors at 8am, officials often only started to help people after 9am.
* There were inadequate and unhygienic toilet facilities.
* Mothers carrying young babies and the elderly had to stand in the endless queues without shelter.
* There was a lack of signage directing people where to queue.
* Staff were rude and apathetic.
* Queue jumpers were common.
Many people said they had visited Home Affairs several times and queued for up to six hours at any one time.
They would queue for hours again to collect their documents.
Haniff Hoosen, the DA’s spokesman on Home Affairs issues, said it had become “an absolute mad state of affairs”.
“None of the offices can handle the volume for smart IDs that is why they are starting to approach the banks. They should have put the systems in place first to meet the demand, before implementing the new requirement,” Hoosen said. “Staff are unprofessional, the facilities are not up to standard and the department does not know what it is doing. It is in an unbelievable state of affairs at the moment.
“They introduced the requirement of the unabridged birth certificate for children to travel, but the department is unable to issue the unabridged birth certificate in time. In some cases it takes eight to 10 months,” he said.
Vaneshree Pillay, an Effingham Heights mother who went to the Umgeni Road office three times with her 16-year-old daughter to apply for the new smart ID, agreed it was a “nightmare”.
“This is no way for a government to treat its people. This is disgraceful”. She said they were turned away the first time because “there were too many people in the queue” and had been back twice since.
“The second time we went just after 12pm and, because it was so hot and there was no shade, we decided to go home. The next time we arrived at 7.30am, but by that time the queue was already snaking around the building,” she said.
“Inside there were 10 tellers for ID applications, but at any given time, there were only two staff helping people. There was no one around. When I enquired why there were only two people working she was so rude. There was no logical explanation, they were simply defensive,” she said.
Pillay said they only left the office at 2.30pm.
Earlier this year, in an effort to stop long queues, Home Affairs Minister, Malusi Gigaba, said the department would partner with banks to roll out the new smart IDs.
During his budget vote speech, Gigaba had said that by next year they hoped to have issued more than 2.2 million ID cards.
The department decided to use banks to issue cards to speed up the process, because it needed to replace about 38 million identity books with the more secure, cards.
But the project is still being piloted.
Home Affairs sheds light
Home Affairs spokesman, Mayihlome Tshwete, said the long queues were caused by enthusiasm for the new smart ID card.
The old green ID book used to take 7 months to issue, but the turnaround time for the smart ID was only 10 days.
He also said the department was undergoing “massive modernisation” as it migrated from a paper to a digital system.
“It is inevitable that there would be occasional disruptions to services. In this regard, our offices have an off-line back-up system that ensures certain services continue to be rendered without inconvenience to clients.”
The poor facilities were also being seen to, he said.
Daily News