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Forgive me, asks Gigaba amid Home Affairs chaos

Source: Pretoria News, 13/10/2016

Pretoria - Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba was forced to apologise
to customers who had been at the department`s centre in Centurion
since the early hours of Wednesday, but had yet to be assisted as the
system was down.

He paid a surprise visit to the centre - and got more than he
bargained for.

lack of professionalism and apparent laziness by staff at the centre
and subsequently asked for forgiveness from the clients.

The minister promised that internal matters causing the poor service
would be dealt with properly. "I will request an urgent plan from the
director-general to transform this office," he assured.

"This centre has also not yet converted into a smart ID office, and I
will request an urgent plan to transform it."

Gigaba was greeted with unacceptably long queues and a system that was
offline for most of the day. The people who were in the queues
informed him about the poor treatment they received at the centre on a
daily basis.

Thato Montsho told the minister the staff at the centre were lazy and
unprofessional.

Gigaba admitted he was shocked during the unplanned visit, which he
said followed a tip-off about the poor service at the facility.
Upon arrival, the minister was astounded when clients told him they
had been there since early in the morning, but had not been attended
to. In fact, others said they had visited the centre numerous times
without being helped.

He said most shocking was that ordinary citizens had to wait for long
hours to receive service, if they got it at all. "We have reiterated
to all our officials that it is important to communicate with the
clients rather than just ignoring them. We have repeatedly told
officials to talk to the clients when the system is down or offline,"
Gigaba said.

But a frustrated client, Maria Mangoele, said she arrived at the
centre at 8am and had waited there with no assistance until well after
lunch time. "It is now after 2pm and no one has even bothered to
explain to us what the matter is," she said.

Passport supervisor at the centre Pakiso Mohlolo said she had tried
her level best to explain to the clients that the system was down, but
they wouldn`t listen.

The sentiment was also echoed by office manager at the centre Nikiwe
Chinkan who said she also tried to explain to clients the system was
not working, but was not successful because of the commotions that
ensued.

But Gigaba reprimanded her and said she must do her job
properly.

"You were trained to communicate with the clients
regardless of the situation; you have to make them understand whether
the system is offline or not," he said.

Deputy director Vusumuzi Mkhize acknowledged that the centre had
problems, but said the main cause of this were Telkom lines.

But another client Debbie Stanbury pointed out she had been there for
the whole day for a service that didn`t require a connection. She said
the problem at the office was that only one person was available to
help clients at a time while the rest did nothing.

Joe van Tonder said he had been to the office several times just to
solve one problem. "I came here at 11am and am yet to be assisted," he
said.

To assist those who couldn`t be helped at the Centurion centre, Gigaba
organised transport for them to be taken to the city centre.

Among them were Mangoele and three others who wanted to complete
applications that had to be done online.

And those who remained also got generous treatment, but some were
sceptical, saying the good service would not continue once the
minister had left the centre.

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