Home Affairs temporarily extends hours to meet growing demand
“We learnt that this wrong practice of sending people home can happen as early as 07:00. We want to emphasise that there is no government policy that provides for that and members of the public should not be treated like that.”
The Department of Home Affairs has temporarily extended its operating times at some of its offices to meet the growing demands for services.
Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said operating times were extended by two and a half hours at front offices, leading to operating hours from 08:00 to 17:30.
Motsoaledi said the extension was due to the high demand for services plaguing Home Affairs offices.
“Out of the 412 Home Affairs offices, 197 are modernised live capture offices which can process smart ID cards and passports. These are the offices that will operate for extended hours because that is where the high demand is.
“The Deputy Minister and I have been receiving a lot of complaints from irate citizens across the country. Most of them complained about a bad practice by some Home Affairs offices where queues are cut and people sent home presumably because they have reached the quota for the day.
“We learnt that this wrong practice of sending people home can happen as early as 07:00. We want to emphasise that there is no government policy that provides for that and members of the public should not be treated like that.
“Where it happens, members of the public must challenge it, take down the name of the official who wants to send them home and raise it with the office manager,” said Motsoaledi.
“The only people who will be sent home are those who arrive after 17:30. Everybody who arrives before 17:30 should be served and not turned away.”
He said the temporary extension was only meant to resolve congestion at the identified offices which increased over the last two weeks.
“This intervention will be supported by the 100% return of staff in all offices.”
He said further, in the unfortunate event of the system being offline, “we will ensure quick intervention and we appeal to members of the public to understand because this is something beyond our control”.
Motsoaledi said senior managers would visit offices unannounced to monitor operations on the ground.
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