Cape Town – Home Affairs director-general Tommy Makhode yesterday had to apologise to frustrated people who were severely impacted by long queues and excessive waiting periods due to an offline system.
Minister Aaron Motsoaledi and his deputy, Njabulo Nzuza, are leading service and monitoring visits at large Home Affairs offices in all nine provinces.
The two-day visits, which come to an end today, were aimed at inspecting the adherence to Covid-19 regulations at branches that serve large numbers of people.
In the Western Cape, Makhode, supported by deputy director-general Thomas Sigama and provincial manager Yusuf Simons, visited the Barrack Street office in the CBD, and the Wynberg and Khayelitsha offices.
The Barrack Street office yesterday had long queues outside that ended a few metres from Plein Street.
Charlotte Fell, from Belhar, claimed she had arrived at 4.30am and gave up after 11am.
“I am among the people that have been here very early. No one bothered to come out and inform us what the problem was.
“This is really not on. When are people going to receive the services they deserve? An official only came out now at 11am with a loudhailer to announce the system is back online after seeing the media.
“I’m going now. I have to fetch my child at school.
“The Bellville offices referred me here since they had to close,” said Fell.
Ishmaeel Ebrahiem, 36, from Rondebosch said he had been waiting with his wife and young children to be assisted since 4am in the morning and was only helped after 10am. He and his family were hoping to travel to Dubai soon.
According to Makhode, Home Affairs usually experiences higher than normal volumes of visitors at this time of the year.
“This trend is expected to continue, and the Covid-19 pandemic demands additional vigilance.
“At the start of the lockdown period, the department drew up a plan to deliver services during the different alert levels.
“The visits are aimed at monitoring the implementation of these plans. The off-line system was national and is being investigated to find out what led to the problem.
“With regard to passports, anyone who had applied was able to access that.
“The areas that were mostly affected were mainly birth registration and identity documentation,” said Makhode.
He said Motsoaledi has set up a team to probe challenges.
“One of our officials has now been deployed to their offices to monitor the system.
“Regarding people being turned away, we are looking at bringing additional capacity to provide assistance in some of our offices.
“For example, the office in Bellville was closed due to a Covid-19 case and some of the people that would have been serviced in Bellville moved to this side in town,” said Makhode.
He said the department was also investigating extending operating hours.
IOL