Battling with poor service from home affairs, join the club?

Source: The South African, 15/11/2016

The Department of Home Affairs wastes millions of Rands of Tax Payers`
money due to numerous court battles, abject inefficiency and laziness,
staff knocking off early, and more.


The cost to the Tax Payer for court action against the department came
to about R100 million in 2015 and, as the DA noted:


"An efficient and effective department should not be spending this
amount of money on legal costs resulting from their own administrative
failures."


More and more people are desperately turning to the courts in order to
get vital documents that they need to for visa applications, work
opportunities and other economically-driven needs.


Thus the cost to the Tax Payer is indeed far greater, and it is not
hard to estimate that the loss to South Africa in terms of tourism and
business and other activities is indeed enormous. Often the turnaround
time after a court order has been granted is expeditious – which
indicates doing the job is not that hard, but clearly, it is laziness
and ineptitude mixed with nepotism and cronyism that is at the heart
of the problem.


You might even wonder if Minister Gigaba has been `captured` as it
appears every State-run service is severely compromised on delivery
where the Guptas may have been involved.


I am aware at the time of writing that a Non-Profit Foundation in
South Africa is considering mass court action against the Department
of Home affairs, specifically with the intent of representing those
without recourse to legal representation.


Such mass action would in effect ask the Courts for an order requiring
the expedient processing of all outstanding applications submitted to
the Court. Towards this end, we would like to ask you to share your
story so that we can gather as many applicable cases as possible for
future submission.


It is not right that we the taxpayer should shoulder the burden of a
department that is failing at its basic duties. They are not doing us
favours, they are servants of the people, our taxes fund their lavish
lifestyles, it is time for us to say enough is enough and force this
ineffective, corrupt government to show up for work!
Sincerely
A gatvol citizen.