Pretoria - Home Affairs Minister Dr Siyabonga Cwele has appealed to citizens who applied for their IDs to collect them in order to participate in the May general election.
He said since the beginning of last year, about 300 000 IDs had been piling up and collecting dust in Home Affairs offices across the country.
“About 80% of these documents were applied for last year, and most of the uncollected IDs are from Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape and Western Cape.
“Even though the issue of collection affects all nine provinces, the largest number of uncollected documents is mainly around Soweto and the northern parts of Pretoria,” he told a media briefing in Pretoria yesterday.
He said the department had extended its operating hours at the large and some of its medium offices from January 2 to 11 to assist citizens in need of IDs for voting preparations.
He said offices started operating from 7 am until 7 pm, and that since the extended hours, 116 404 citizens had visited the centres.
“The total number of applications received for smart ID cards and passports is 82 383 and only 29 137 of those were collected,” he said.
This was proof that many people visited their offices to apply for the documents, but only a few collected them.
“Maybe people still think we take long to process the documents, but we actually process the applications very fast now.”
He said the department was working towards a modern, secure and professional Home Affairs. “We invited interested persons and organisations to submit written comments to the White Paper of the department by February 18.
“The paper seeks to find suitable solutions to the challenges we face including long queues, shortage of staff and infrastructure,.”
Cwele also disclosed that altogether 6 852 972 people passed through South Africa's ports of entry between December 1, 2018 and January 15, 2019.
The department experienced high traveller movements across the ports of entry, with travelling influenced mainly by tourism, cross-border employment, business and education programmes. - Additional reporting: African News Agency (ANA)