Maybe, being oldies in our mid’-70s, my wife and I have missed press releases on obtaining ID Smart Cards.
As pensioners, residing at an old age home in Benoni, Home Affairs assured us we could go to Boksburg to obtain this card, the only office giving this service in our area.
Later I found Edenvale also offered this service, but not Germiston.
All I can say is that it was an eye-opener to experience the inefficiency; we were there for one and a half hours and attended to at five different “stations”.
The computer system also went offline for a while.
The last straw was at the final station, to have finger prints done, to be told suddenly that they could not process us, as, being born outside SA’s borders, we were, under “The Minister’s ruling; foreign nationals”!!
Later, having discovered that Home Affairs had a customer services free-call phone number (Cape Town), I was able to confirm this ruling.
I then formally registered a complaint that all the Home Affairs staff, Boksburg, should be made aware of this ruling.
I asked whether I could also formally complain of the time wasted in the cumbersome system.
We should have been told at the first “port of call”, the information desk, where our ID numbers were verified — as was done at each station we were referred to on our journey around their offices.
I then received a very sweet apology.
I asked how we, as registered citizens of SA by descent (three generations born in SA), sworn into SA citizenship at a SA magistrates office in the 1970s, had lived in SA for 45 years, paid taxes, have SA passports, vote, and have been registered for SASSA grants for over 10 years, etc., could suddenly be listed as “foreign nationals”.
I never dreamed of being “foreign” in the country I have lived in for so long as a registered citizen.
The only excuse was that it was “the Minister’s ruling” and maybe we would be able to get a card in the vague future – at “the Minister’s discretion”!
