Home Affairs Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi has officially opened a new Home Affairs office at the Pavilion Shopping Centre in Durban on Monday.
The Department says clients will have the convenience of applying for its services when visiting the shopping centre.
The new branch is the third building in a mall following the launch in Gauteng at Menlyn and Cresta and will offer application and collections services for IDs and passports.
The Department of Home Affairs says 89% of South Africans are registered on their database.
The 11% of the population not registered translates to six million people.
In a bid to modernise its services while catering to the influx of people, the Department has established offices in various malls across the country.
The Department has set up offices in various shopping centres across the country, in an effort to modernise its services while accommodating the influx of people.
Min Motsoaledi, KZN Premier @nomusadubencube, DM Nzuza, Pareto GCEO Mr Kekana address attendees at the opening of the office in @ThePavSA which marks another milestone in making access to home affairs services more convenient for clients @GCISMedia pic.twitter.com/8XbqurMNPh
— HomeAffairsSA 🇿🇦 (@HomeAffairsSA) April 22, 2024
There have been complaints from the public about the long queues and delays at the branches of the Home Affairs Department.
They can now visit the branch at the mall to access various Home Affairs services, such as applying for Smart Cards Identity Documents, passports, birth certifications and to make online bookings on the Branch Appointment Booking System.
Motsoaledi says, “People come here for shopping they collect their number, start the process and come back when it’s ready, we don’t have the long queues that home affairs is known for, but this particular one we are solving another problem we have been inundated with issues of the Umgeni office in town which is always full, it’s over subscribed so we thought we need another office of this nature which will help it.”
The Home Affairs Department says plans are also afoot to launch one hundred mobile Home Affairs units to service rural areas.
Home Affairs officials @ThePavSA office waiting to serve the public #DHAServiceDelivery pic.twitter.com/4rI0Cg460n
— HomeAffairsSA 🇿🇦 (@HomeAffairsSA) April 22, 2024
The provincial government says many people in remote areas remain undocumented.
KwaZulu-Natal Premier, Nomusa Dube-Ncube says, “We are a rural province, our province is very vast and it takes a lot of time & numbers to reach one area so the number that he has procured for servicing our rural area is quite good and we think it’s going to be able to really reach out to many community members you would know that you still find elderly people without ID documents because if you look at Stats SA and the numbers they come up with its not the same and that is depriving us of our own budget and budgeting for the citizens.”
Motsoaledi also addresses fraud and corruption within his department. He welcomes the 14-year sentence of a Home Affairs employee in Limpopo for issuing fraudulent birth certificates.
“This particular one was selling birth certificates to children from South Africa who were not even born here and that’s why he has been nabbed and sentenced to 14 years – we are very happy about that but I would have been happy if he was sentenced for more because then no other home officials officer would so such a thing because when you sell birth certificates you are breaking our laws and distorting our national population register.”
The Department says it will open up new branches at Cape Town’s Tiger Valley and Gauteng South Gate Mall.
