Don’t go offline, Minister Aaron Motsoaledi

Dear Minister Aaron Motsoaledi,

Your department of home affairs is one of the few government departments that had been known for efficiency and great improvement in the last decade or so.

There was a stage during the tenure of one of your many predecessors, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, when going to home affairs was enjoyable because you would be out in two hours or less.

She introduced a system where you could phone the head of the department and fellow officials directly on their cellphones to complain about service because their numbers and pictures were displayed on the wall at every office.

But not any more.

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Every time one pays a visit to home affairs or even pass by, you are greeted by long queues outside the premises and inside.

The Roodepoort office seems to be the worst affected by this scourge.

This week I went there and, as usual, I found crowds outside sitting on chairs in the open waiting to collect their documents.

Inside was another crowd of people standing, some sitting on the benches, waiting to get service.

Not that I wanted anything, but I was curious to see why so many people were there.

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I imagined it was a response to your call that they must come to collect their identity documents in preparation for the general election next year.

I realised that poor people had not been given service since early that morning because computers were not working as “the system is down” – the usual excuse.

An official who saw me loitering around called me and asked how could she help me. They are so good to ask when they know there is not help to offer.

I asked her why everything had come to a standstill.

She politely said: “The computers are offline”.

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What a familiar song from home affairs these days, minister. I am sure you also know how to sing it as well by now.

Why, minister, is your department’s system always down or computers off line?

It happens everywhere. Sometimes I think it’s an excuse by your officials to rest while people are sweating in the heat inside and outside your offices.

I think – no, I know – you need to act. You are so good at that, but I rarely see you at the home affairs offices.

At Roodepoort and, maybe at other offices, why are people made to queue outside in the open, whether it’s hot or cold?

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There is a shack with chairs posing as a waiting room, but why not build a proper waiting room instead of an “informal settlement” with just a small roof?

Your determination to resolve the question of migration is well recorded and you should be supported by all for that. We are in this crisis of illegal immigrants who jump the border because of the mistake of your ruling party.

I am sure you know that because there are times when I can read your frustration on your face.

I can’t forget your pleas at your party’s national policy conference last year trying to convince your comrades to understand the problem.

But what can you expect from people who think they have arrived? Migrants are such a problem that some countries sell them to the highest bidder, as Britain did to Rwanda. This is a time bomb about to explode in South Africa.

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But it’s important to start resolving those small-anyana crises in your offices, such as malfunctioning IT systems.

Apart from the crisis of your computers that are always out of order, your department, otherwise, had not been doing so badly.

I think that’s the only section that is letting you down in your quest to make our government work.