Home Affairs Department apologises for recent service interruptions
Services at Home Affairs offices resume as normal
David Hlabane
Home Affairs Department
Home Affairs front offices in all provinces are back online and are providing full services after last week’s service interruptions in some offices arising from a system upgrade of the live capture system which was conducted from March 29 to 31.
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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.
By the end of business April 1, most of the front offices were able to transact and issue enabling documents with an exception of a few.
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.
Since the launch of the smart ID card on 18 July 2013, the number of cards issued is 12 844 745. In the 2018/19 financial year, 3 127 217 smart ID cards were issued.
Last week, the Department received 19 096 applications in spite of technical glitches experienced. There are 355 257 smart ID cards in various offices that are uncollected as at 31 March 2019.
Of the total, 278 242 are re-issues where such clients are likely to have documents in their possession while 77 015 are for those who have applied for the first time and never came to collect.
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