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Will the `I dos` wane as registers dry up

Source: City Press, 11/09/2016

Couples planning to get married this spring may be forced to postpone
their wedding ceremonies, as the department of home affairs is
experiencing a countrywide shortage of marriage registers.

Since May 2016, marriage officers in private practice have reportedly
not received the documents from the department, and they are
fuming.

City Press has seen several correspondences between marriage officers
and the director of births, marriages, deaths and records management
at the department of home affairs, Aaron Ramodumo, in which a majority
appealed unsuccessfully to get new copies of marriage registers from
the department.

A Pretoria-based marriage officer, Jaco Venter, said he had not
received new marriage registers for three months.

"We have a shortage of marriage registers in the country and very
little is being done about it.

"Our biggest frustration is inconsistency in the different
offices.

You`ll find five different opinions regarding
regulations, rules and laws within one office.

"No one knows what is going on. Each one has his or her own
interpretation of what is right or not," complained Venter.

Ramodumo confessed in several emails sent to complaining marriage
officers: "It is true that we are dealing with some internal matters
relating to the acquisition of marriage registers. The chief director
... has pleaded with supply chain to speed up the process. I remain
hopeful that we will get the registers soon."

"I only have six marriage registers left," said Venter.

In another email to a desperate marriage officer, who asked not to be
named for fear of victimisation, Ramodumo wrote: "I am aware we are
still to do stock taking; we are very soon going to crash, as there is
a desperate need for DHA-30 forms [marriage registers] (sic)."

However, the department insisted that there was no crisis, saying
there were more marriage registers than needed.

"It`s a question of provincial managers not allocating registers to
specific offices," said the department`s spokesperson, Mayihlome Tshwete.

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