The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) is experiencing an overwhelming number of uncollected IDs nationally and the City of Ekurhuleni is no exception.
Spokesperson of the CoE, Themba Gadebe said the there are approximately 19 150 smart IDs and 1 528 green bar-coded IDs that are left uncollected in Ekurhuleni.
He said the city urges residents to collect their IDs so that they can register to vote during the voter registration period in January 2019.
“Furthermore, uncollected IDs hamper the city’s service delivery programmes because residents cannot register for other municipal programmes, such as RDP housing and cannot collect their title deeds when they are available for collection. “Among the services that the residents forgo due to lack of IDs are enlisting on the city’s indigent database for which they are entitled to free water, free electricity and indigent rebates to assessment rates,” he said.
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To this end, CoE entered into a partnership with the Department of Home Affairs to fast-track collection of IDs.
The city is providing transport to elderly residents and people living with disability and military veterans.
“Non-governmental organisations, community-based organisations and churches have also been roped in to assist. The city has also used its popular community outreach programme, Siyaqhuba, to advocate for application and collection of birth certificates and IDs.
There are currently 4 540 smart IDs and 234 green bar-coded IDs at Edenvale Home Affairs that have not been collected.
