ID card owners must act smartly
Thousands of smart ID cards await collection at Home Affairs
NO less than 1 697 smart ID cards are waiting for collection at the Richards Bay office of the Department of Home Affairs (DHA).
The situation is hardly better at Empangeni DHA where 1 487 cards await their owners, while 377 are ready to go at eShowe DHA.
‘Having so many uncollected smart ID cards at offices is a risk,’ said uThungulu District Manager: Operations Sikhosiphi Dlamini.
‘The turn-around time for the smart ID cards is anything from a week to a month and on arrival at the office of application, they are scanned and an sms notification is sent to the applicants informing them that they may collect them.
‘We also wish to inform the public that the IT issues that posed some challenges at the Richards Bay office have been fixed and we request members of the public to now come and apply for smart ID cards.
‘Our intention is to ensure that all eligible citizens who are 16 years and above are in possession of the smart ID cards before the Minister’s determination of all green bar-coded identity documents are invalid.
‘Also, because of the local government elections in 2016, we could have overcrowding in offices when all these clients arrive to collect their smart ID cards just in time to vote in such elections.’
Other issues
Dlamini also warned the late registration of birth in its current form will expire in December 2015.
‘As the Birth and Death Registration Act requires, parents must register their babies within 30 days of the birth event.
‘To assist mothers do register we, together with the Department of Health, have established Home Affairs offices in some health facilities with maternity wards and employed staff to work in those offices.
‘However, the number of births that we register in such health facilities is very low compared to the number of births that take place.’
As of 1 January 2016, parents who do not register their babies within 30 days of birth will face penalties, which may be in a financial form.
‘This is all part of our attempts to have a credible National Population Register and to deal with corruption which results in non-South African citizens accessing citizenship of the country through fraudulent means,’ said Dlamini.
He also appealed to parents with minors who are in possession of passports to apply for unabridged birth certificates.
This is to comply with the new regulations in the event that such parents have to travel with such minors.
