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Long queues at Home Affairs in spite of minister’s promise

Source: Ground up, 10/12/2021


But provincial manager claims “Home Affairs has declared war on
queues”
In October, Minister of Home Affairs Aaron Motsoaledi responded to
complaints by the public about long queues, saying offices were being
modernised. He promised extended hours, a full return of staff, and
that senior managers would visit offices unannounced to monitor
operations on the ground.
But when GroundUp visited several Home Affairs offices last week, the
queues were still long, and people had still been queuing since dawn
in the hope, often vain, of being assisted.
Central Johannesburg, Thursday morning: long, snaking queues on two
sides of the Home Affairs building. Vangile Msimanga, from
Vlakfontein, said she left home at 6:15am to get to Home Affairs by
7am. She needs a passport. Also standing in the queue was Ntombi
Zwane, from Brixton, who needs an ID. “I am a bit worried because this
queue is not moving,” she said.
Central Cape Town, Barrack Street, Thursday morning. When the offices
opened at 8am, queues stretched from Buitenkant Street to Corporation
Street. People arranged themselves into queues for collections, ID-
card applications and passport applications, new birth registrations,
and temporary ID-card applications. “We stand in the queue for five
hours and there’s no toilet facilities … I don’t know why they don’t
let the people use the toilets inside,” said Yulene Fortune. She had
left her home in Mannenberg just after 4am. She needed to collect her
new ID card. Photo: Marecia Damons
Meanwhile, on 24 November, Home Affairs briefed the Standing Committee
on Premier and Constitutional Matters about systems, operational hours
and staffing in the Western Cape. Provincial manager Yusuf Simons said
that the department’s working hours are 7:30am till 4pm, with the
office open to the public from 8am to 3:30pm.
Simons said that between 2013 and August 2020, Western Cape Home
Affairs had lost over 2,500 staff members. “To address the problem of
under staffing, DHA is working towards implementing automated services
and training staff that has been working on manual services. The
booking system has been completed, tested and will be implemented soon
to make appointments to avoid the stampede and overcrowding. The
department has also entered into partnership with organisations and
municipalities to help with queue marshals, cleaners, sanitising,
screening and recording of clients queueing outside offices. EPWP
[Extended Public Works Programme] workers have been deployed to high
volume offices like Cape Town, Nyanga, Mitchells Plain, Bellville and
Khayelithsa,” he said.
He said most of the Western Cape offices have been modernised and have
live data capture systems. “Home Affairs has declared war on queues to
reduce waiting time by displaying signage outside offices to
categorise queues into smart card and passport applications, smart
card and passport collections, prioritise client categories, such as
elderly, physically challenged persons, mothers with infants as well
as scholars in uniform. We have also extended office hours during the
festive season. Challenges experienced are system downtimes due to
cable theft and loadshedding which damage servers and equipment when
generators refuse to kick in,” he said.
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