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Late Birth Registrations Must Be Tough: Says Deputy Minister of Home Affairs

Source: By OLIVER NGWENYA THE PUBLIC NEWS HUB, 15/10/2015

On Tuesday in Parliament during the Home Affairs briefing, Fatima
Chohan the Deputy Minister of Home Affairs said the department of Home
Affairs wants to make late birth registrations tough in order to get
rid of failed asylum seekers who try their luck for South African
citizenship.

Chohan said the screening will be made difficult since most of the
people taking up late registration are failed asylum seekers who have
not left the South Africa.

She pointed out that there had been situations in which people who are
80 years of age had received an identity document for the first time.

Therefore this facility was meant to assist those who
during apartheid didn`t register their identity documents. Chohan
added that people are abusing this service which was offered as people
claimed that they didn`t have birth records and they were unable to
obtain death certificates because their parents died. "We have to go
by what they say. We have to� try to verify the information they give�
Then sometimes they bribe some South Africans to say, `Well I am this
person`s aunt`," said Chohan.

She went on to say the government has played its part to assist the
people. She said the government has done it by making it possible to
register births at hospitals and bringing to 704 527 the number of
births registered within 30 days of birth during the review period of
2014/15 thus making it to be above 694 000 births, which was the
target, registered within 30 days of birth.

Chohan continued to say the closing of the Port Elizabeth refugee
reception centre was as a result of the exploitation of the services
of home affairs. She said a syndicate had been uncovered, that flies
non-South Africans into Port Elizabeth. She also said it was like a
tourist bus and they got off the plane threw their passports away and
went to the refugee reception centre in Port Elizabeth.

Chohan added that refugee reception centres must be positioned at the
South Africa`s borders to avert people who don`t have proper documents
from being arrested and deported while on their way to apply for
refugee papers.

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