Durban - Umgeni Home Affairs computerised systems are offline - yet again - which means that applications cannot be processed.
When the Daily News visited the offices on Monday, residents could be seen standing in queues, which snaked around the office. Many complained that the computers have been offline since last week.
A woman who did not want to be named said on Wednesday last week, she went to the offices to make an application for an identity document and she was told that the system was offline and she should come back the next day.
“On Thursday I was told the system was offline again, they told me to come back on Friday and when I did they were offline again,” said the woman who arrived at the office around 5am on Monday morning.
The woman, who travelled all the way from Phoenix, said they were told at 8:15am that the system was offline.
“Something has to be done about this system. There is clearly a problem with it. When I left at 10:30am the system was still offline,” she said.
A 50-year-old woman, who has had two major spinal surgeries and desperately needs her passport as she has made arrangements to get medical help overseas, was also in the queue.
“I arrived here at 7:15am. At 9:45am, I learnt they were offline. Today was the fourth day here for me,” she said.
Home Affairs provincial manager in KwaZulu-Natal, Cyril Mncwabe, said the system being offline was not unique to KZN and was in fact a national problem.
“We have been told that technicians are on site working on the problem. Our system has been online and offline since Wednesday,” he said.
However, spokesperson for the Minister of Home Affairs, Siya Qoza, denied that the department’s system had been offline nationally.
He said technicians were working to bring Durban back online.