DA oversight to Home Affairs offices reveals failings
14 August 2021
The DA calls on the Minister of Home Affairs, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, to urgently review his department’s current system to manage the long queues and excessive delays at Home Affairs offices across the country.
The DA has been inundated with outraged citizens that lament the service at various Home Affairs offices, and recent oversights by the DA to the Home Affairs offices in Benoni and Edenvale revealed several concerning shortcomings.
At the Edenvale offices, officials were directing people to the Benoni and Kempton Park offices as their systems had been offline for days. The DA were informed that not only had no work been done for two days, but that this systems failure was a weekly occurrence. The continuous cable theft in the area prompted the office to install an MTN router, but this failed to solve the problem.
The DA had received a report alleging that the Home Affairs offices in Benoni was only assisting 5 people per hour while people were forced to stand in long queues without a queue marshal to ensure that social distancing is observed. Upon our arrival, we found a long queue with people indicating that they have been waiting for assistance since 07:30 that morning. The manager at this office informed the DA that they too were struggling with their system and that it was offline.