All Brian wants is his birth certificate

Brian Smith is a man with no identity. Not because of a lack of trying, the system failed him.

Brian left South Africa as a three-year-old in 1972 after his mother and Australian stepfather married in Zimbabwe.

Seven years later he obtained an Australian passport. Since then he frequently visited South Africa on his mother’s passport.

In February 2008 his mother applied for his South African birth certificate to get his ID book. Armed with only a tracking – and a bag number they were hopeful that he would have his birth certificate soon. But things did not turn out that way. The bag got lost and she reapplied in May 2013.

“I have been back in Africa since 2014, first visiting my sister who was residing in eMalahleni and then travelling to Zimbabwe, Swaziland and Mozambique.”

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Since then no headway was made.

Brian has been at the Witbank Home Affairs Department 19 times, seven times at the Durban office, once in Alberton and once in Centurion and Johannesburg.

“It does not inspire confidence when you walk into government departments and see people chatting on their cell phones and eating at their desks while women with babies and small children are queuing for hours to get attended to.”

Three weeks ago Brian was told it could take six months before he can get his ID book.

Mr Brian Smith.

“This means I have waited 11 years any kind of recognition of my birth in South Africa.”

“I am behind the eight ball to the tune of hundreds of thousands because I have had lost five well paid jobs in last three years alone. The final stick in the eye apart from not being able to marry my fiancé is the fact that a bunch of well heeled foreigners can have their passports granted by a minister at the stroke of a pen even though they do not meet the qualifying standards,” he said.

The department’s spokesperson, Mr Thabo Mokgola, said they had instituted an investigation in the matter.