‘Queue mafia’ in KZN holding home affairs offices hostage

A group of people paid to sit in queues at Tongaat and KwaDukuza home affairs is causing a great deal of frustration and unhappiness among KwaZulu-Natal north coast residents who wait for hours in vain.

Tormented by long queues, their exasperation is further fuelled by the apparent inability of home affairs management to address the problems and introduce streamlined operations, North Coast Courier reported.

In a bid to get an inside view into the issues experienced, the publication joined a queue at Tongaat home affairs recently.

Documenting queue hoppers

From 5:30am, at least 30 people formed a queue to wait out the next three hours until the offices opened.

Minutes after arriving, 50 more people joined the queue, complete with “entrepreneurs” paid R200 to jump the queue on behalf of others, and renting out chairs at R5 a piece.

The problem with the “queue mafia”, as coined by one Inanda resident, is that they push the queue further back, resulting in people showing up early ending up not being served.

Once the person paying the queue hoppers arrives at the home affairs offices, they are ushered to the front of the queue.

North Coast Courier also witnessed a man, who could not be confirmed as a home affairs official, directing people to different queues and escorting people in from the gate, instructing the security guards to let them through.

People claimed he was one of the men who “sold seats”, but nobody dared confront him as it would cause “big trouble”.

‘System offline’

One frustrated resident, Sue Beningfield, told the North Coast Courier of her attempt to renew her son’s passport last month.

She said a car guard told her he started duty at midnight, with people arriving outside the Home Affairs offices as early as 2am, to book their spot in the queue.

“We were there at 4.30am in the pouring rain and were 15th in queue. The offices opened at 8.20am and we got through the outside gate at 9.20am. At midday, we got inside the building and for the first time had a seat.

“We were supposedly the lucky ones as there were still people standing in long queues in the pouring rain. We got a number at 1pm – number 182!”

By 2.30pm that afternoon, Beningfield’s son had not yet had his photos taken, and had 50 people ahead of them.

“The system has been off and on all day. There are no toilets for people to use.

“People (about 10) arrived at 2.30pm to have photos taken as they were not attended to the previous day. They expected to push in front of us who have been here since 4am. How does that happen?

“People pay for a space, people have appointments and people know someone!”

The North Coast Courier did reach out to the Department of Home Affairs, but none was received by the time of publication.

Edited by Nica Richards.

This article first appeared on Caxton publication North Coast Courier, by Sboniso Dlamini. Read the original article here.