Department of Home Affairs is still offline

MBOMBELA – Hundreds of people, travelling from all over the Lowveld, have been affected negatively by the fact the Department of Home Affairs have not been able to operate since Thursday.

This is caused by the fact the systems are allegedly offline across the province. Many more might also be affected, as there is no indication of when operations will be able to continue.

When the newspaper visited the building today they were still offline.

Queues of more than a hundred people at a time were seen outside the department’s building on Monday, where the problem had not yet been resolved.

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An employee told Lowvelder that their team came into the office on Sunday to work on the problem, though she could not give a time or date when their systems would be up and running again.

The department’s acting provincial manager, Dorris Chiloane, told the newspaper on Thursday that a number of home affairs offices were offline and that she was receiving feedback from the affected offices about a possible time frame when their systems would be restored.

“Testing is being done and the system is responding positively as head office deals with the problem,” Chiloane said.

Many of the locals standing in the queue yesterday said that they were not aware of the fact that the systems were offline.

“Nobody has come to tell us that there is a problem,” Elizabeth Shiba said. She travelled all the way from Matsulu to come and collect her passport. Shiba was saddened by the fact that despite the money and time she spent to travel to the office in town and the day she had to take off work, it did not look like she would get her passport.

Sibongile Masugu shared her sentiment. She travelled from Driekoppies and was also not aware of the fact that the systems were not working.

Didi Matsane was standing in the queue waiting on an ID and travelled from Pienaar for the day. “I know that the systems are offline, although I am hoping that they will be able to help us later today. That is why I will keep on standing in the queue.”

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Locals were also recently met with closed doors at the Department of Labour as well as the local SARS office.

Both these entities, however, were open by Monday morning.