EDITOR – My daughter (18) visited the Edenvale Home Affairs on November 12 to apply for a Smart Card identity document (ID).
During the first visit, after waiting in line, she was informed that without a copy of my ID her application could not be processed. On Saturday, November 14, we went back to Home Affairs with a copy of my ID. They proceeded to do the application over once again and said the previous application had been deleted.
We were told she would receive the ID in seven to 10 days.
After waiting 10 days, she received an SMS saying she must go into the Homes Affairs office. I phoned the customer services to find out what the problem was and was told again that the application had been deleted from the system.
I then went to Home affairs again when my daughter was asked to fill in a further application for a first-time ID.
However, I was then informed in a very rude manner that her application had been denied because I am not an SA citizen and nor is her father. Her father and I do have South African ID documents. Both her father and I have permanent residence status.
I have been a permanent resident here for 44 years and her father for more than 30 years. We both have been gainfully employed our whole working life in South Africa and are honest and legal taxpayers.
I argued that this could not be possible because my daughter was born in South Africa and has a South African birth certificate. I was told to fill in a Determination of Citizenship Status for her, with mine and her father’s permanent residence details, and wait in the birth certificate and death certificate queue.
Unfortunately, I did not have all the information required on the form relating to her father’s permanent residence so we had to leave the queue at Home Affairs.
I was informed that once this form has been submitted at Home Affairs, it will take Pretoria three weeks or so to make a decision whether she would be granted an SA ID. There is absolutely no logic in the Home Affairs decision to decline my daughter’s application for an ID. Without an ID she is a non entity in this country. She has just matriculated. She cannot apply to study, apply for jobs nor apply to write her learners. We are at the mercy of Home Affairs at this stage, who frankly couldn’t care.
MARGARET WILSON,
EDENVALE.
r Letter received on December 12.
The NEWS requested comment frpm the Department of Home Affairs, Edenvale, by December 18 at 10am.
