Home Affairs’ services back online a week after service interruptions

After last week’s service interruptions in some Home Affairs offices, the Department of Home Affairs announced on Monday that all its front offices in all the provinces are back online and are providing full services to citizens.

The service interruptions were caused by a system upgrade of the live capture system which was conducted between 29 and 31 March 2019.

According to the Government News Agency, the live capture system of the 193 modernised offices was upgraded as part of the department’s modernisation programme.

“Due to the magnitude of work to be done and new software that had to be transmitted to the offices, several technical errors were encountered which affected operations at modernised offices,” explained the department in a statement.

By COB on Monday, 1 April most of the front offices were able to transact and issue enabling documents with the exception of a few offices which were still offline.

The department invited clients who have applied for documents, including smart ID cards and passports to visit Home Affairs offices where they have applied to collect their documents.

“The Department is thankful to citizens for their patience, and reiterates its apology for service interruptions. The ongoing modernisation programme at Home Affairs, whose outcomes include a new national identity system, requires new technology which then necessitates system upgrades from time to time. How long they take depends on the magnitude of the work to be done,” explained the department.

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(Compiled by: Kaunda Selisho)

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