THE Department of Home Affairs on Monday announced that all its front offices in all the provinces are back online and are providing full services to citizens.

This comes after last week’s service interruptions in some offices arising from a system upgrade of the live capture system which was conducted on 29 – 31 March.

The live capture system of the 193 modernised offices was upgraded as part of the department’s modernisation programme.

Due to the magnitude of work to be done and new software that had to be transmitted to the offices, several technical errors were encountered which affected operations at modernised offices.

Read also: Home Affairs warns of ID verification scam 

By the end of business on Monday, 1 April, most of the front offices were able to transact and issue enabling documents (80 per cent) with an exception of a few (20 per cent which were offline).

To date, there are only nine offices reported to have camera errors which are being addressed, however all other services including collections of IDs, passports and processing of births, marriages and deaths are online and available.

“Clients who have applied for documents, including smart ID cards and passports, are invited to visit Home Affairs offices where they have applied to collect their documents. The Department is thankful to citizens for their patience, and reiterates its apology for service interruptions,” the department said.

The department currently operates in an environment presenting many challenges with regard to meeting service delivery standards consistently.

In other news: Election poster theft plagues DA

A major factor is that its footprint is only partially aligned with the location and size of communities. A related factor is that most of the front offices are rented by the Department of Public Works and therefore, the quality of infrastructure provision, such as office space, networks and access, widely vary.

For more from Northglen News follow us on Facebook or Twitter. You can also follow us on Instagram