By Staff Reporters and Sapa
It is not often Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma cries, but on hearing that a Durban man had killed himself out of despair that he could not get the identity document he needed for his new job, she broke down in tears.
On Friday his brother found the body of S'khumbuzo Douglas Mhlongo, 22, in his dilapidated shack near Hillcrest. He had left a suicide note that said he had taken his life because not having an ID meant he could not do anything.
As the family and friends of Mhlongo grieve, the minister and Home Affairs officials have vowed to track down the bureaucrat who allegedly ripped up Mhlongo's application form and threw them in his face.
Still upset, Dlamini-Zuma on Saturday lashed out at officials who "think they rule the world". She hinted that the official might have been angling for a bribe.
On Saturday, Mhlongo's brother, Mbongeni, and sister, Zandile, said they had last seen him on Sunday and he seemed normal.
"He seemed in the right frame of mind and I did not think he would do anything extreme," Mbongeni said. The room where he found his brother hanging is a shack at the back of a house where he had lived a poverty-stricken existence for several years.
His sister said the family had been abandoned by their mother several years before.
Mhlongo had been working part-time at a local pet food producer. In March he was told he would be given a full-time job, but he needed to get an identity book.
At Pinetown's Home Affairs offices he and a friend applied for the ID books and although his friend received his, Mhlongo kept having to go back to officials. They wanted documents from a local councillor to prove he was a South African citizen, his family claim.
They said when he took such documents, he was given the run-around, and was accused of forging the councillor's signature.
He asked a neighbour, Mrs Mhlongo, to assist him and accompany him to Home Affairs. The family claim staff at Pinetown told him they were not going to help him if he came with a "foreigner's mentality" and asked for a R400 bribe.
His sister said in recent months he was so overwhelmed with debt, having borrowed money from people for his living expenses and to visit Home Affairs offices, he did not want to leave his shack.
A neighbour, Clifton Vumbu, said Mhlongo told him last week that when he had gone to Home Affairs for an interview, they had torn up his application papers and told him to go.
Speaking on Saturday at a media conference, Dlamini-Zuma said "people who work in those offices, the majority of them, think they rule the world". The minister was attending a service delivery workshop at Umzimkhulu.
Dlamini-Zuma said she had received a call on Friday night to inform her Mhlongo had killed himself, after an alleged incident at the Pinetown Home Affairs office.
Obtaining an ID without a birth certificate requires late registration and involves drawing on statements from people who say they know the applicant, as well as an interview with the people and the applicant by the department.
"The... person who was conducting the interview was not satisfied with the information and then said this young man was lying and tore the papers and threw them at them, and said that clearly they are not even South African and used this derogative word that they use for foreigners, and basically chased him away and condemned this young man to no life.
"And, of course, what is worse is that he was looking forward to starting a job, but obviously they had said he must bring his ID when he comes to work and if he doesn't have an ID, then they will give it to someone else.
"And, of course, when it became clear that they are not prepared to give him an ID, they are not even prepared to accept him as a South African, he then decided to end his life, Dlamini-Zuma said.
Speaking earlier, department spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa said when Dlamini-Zuma heard of his death, she was very upset.
"It is the first time I have heard the minister cry.
"She has spoken to the family, and has sent a director-general to the family. She just sat there crying, saying that she has a 22-year-old daughter."
On Saturday Dlamini-Zuma said "obviously as a person who has that portfolio it's very difficult, so we hope that it won't happen again...
"We are going to find the person who acted in that way and we won't have tolerance for people like that."
Both the police and Home Affairs director-general Mavuso Msimang had visited the family and had made copies of the suicide note.
Dlamini-Zuma said they would identify the official who allegedly tore up the documents, but said: "That's not enough because we have to get rid of this culture".
She said the department was a "difficult" one which had never had a proper culture of service or ubuntu. She said without an ID, people have no life and this should make officials sensitive and vigilant in making sure they are not frustrated in their quest for documentation.
"But for some reason it seems to have the reverse, people think it's power, they can demand what they want from the public, they can demand money, they can demand whatever. And if people don't give the bribes, then they don't give us the service," she said.