AT a time when the country is heading to a crucial election, having over 500 000 sitting uncollected at offices of the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) is a painful reminder of the failures and inefficiencies of the current ruling party.
The concerns were raised by ActionSA earlier on Thursday as they stressed that they were concerned following the admissions made by Home Affairs Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi about there being a high number of uncollected ID smartcards nationwide.
According to the party, Motsoaledi had detailed this in a parliamentary question-and-answer session in November last year, where he stated that the primary drivers of this being system downtime at the department.
“The structural inefficiencies within the department are a significant cause for concern, no doubt because we are in a seminal election year.
“Operationally, the department’s branches were down for a combined 15 289 hours between the months of April and May 2023, while for the half year, the figure rose to 36 000 hours, with 57% of this due to system downtime. This is a scathing indictment of the country’s apex document management body and thus calls for a swift review of the glaring operational deficiencies,” said ActionSA FixSA member Lerato Ngobeni.
Ngobeni said what was also worrying was the fact that the department was yet to unblock more than 700 000 IDs despite this practice being declared “unconstitutional and ignoring the jurisprudential value of ubuntu”, something which she stressed would negatively impact mothers from registering their children’s births and securing official identification for their children when they come of age.
“ActionSA implores the department, the minister, and his management team to see to it that this is speedily resolved and that qualifying citizens are not deprived of the right to official documentation that empowers them to live dignified lives.”
The department was yet to provide a response on the current number of uncollected IDs.