Kempton Home Affairs call police to maintain calm

Residents of Kempton Park were left frustrated as they had to spend yet another day without receiving services at the Home Affairs on July 1.

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Nomthandazo Ndala told Kempton Express that she has been trying to apply for her child’s identity document at Kempton Park Homes Affairs to no avail.

“Today (July 1) we have been here since 04:00 to hopefully apply for my child’s ID that is urgently needed at school. I spend money to come here and cannot afford to be turned away,” said Ndala.

Ndala and other fed-up residents alleged that employees of the Kempton Park Home Affairs did not make attempts to effectively explain the reasons for the disruptions.

The residents told Express that Kempton Park SAPS was called to monitor the situation despite, according to the residents, there being no acts of violence towards the Home Affairs and its employees.

“The Home Affairs office experienced IT issues that resulted in system downtime on June 30,” said Kempton Park Home Affairs office manager Joshua Masondo.

“Due to these IT issues, a substantial number of offices across Gauteng were unable to operate the entire day.

“This resulted in offices having to turn clients away with the hope that the matter would have been resolved by July 1.

“The Kempton Park office prioritised those community members who had already been admitted inside the office on the morning of the 30th to be tended to on July 1.

Throughout the day, we advised clients of our system challenges as well as developments in resolving the matter and assured them that our technicians were working on resolving the problem.

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“We had not anticipated that the problem would last the entire day which, unfortunately, was the case.

“When we tested the system on the 1st we realised that the matter was yet to be resolved as our systems were still giving error messages,” said Masondo.

“We received confirmation from our IT technicians that the matter was receiving attention and would be resolved.

“We informed customers who were expecting services on the 1st and explained our continuing predicament, while on the other hand also trying to reassure them that the matter would be resolved.

“This sparked anger and frustration among those queuing outside of the office,” said Masondo.

“Clients were pushing their way inside the office past security officials. Due to this, the branch requested the presence of law enforcement to stabilise the situation,” said Masondo.

Masondo also noted in an email to the Express that operations were restored around 09:00 on July 1 with clients being assisted until 18:00.

He apologised for the inconvenience to clients.

“Kempton Park Home Affairs understand the plight of people for better services.

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“We also understand that people spend their time and money to report to our offices daily and deserve to receive a service,” said Masondo.

The Kempton Park Home Affairs extended working hours during school holidays to 18:00. The extended office hours will be applicable until July 22.

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