A LA Lucia resident’s life has been on hold for the last five months after she learned that her ID had reportedly been blocked.
Speaking to the Northglen News recently, Dinorah De Vos said she has been unable to open a new bank account and doubts that she will be able to execute her constitutional right to vote. “At this point, in any official capacity I do not exist,” she said.
The frustrated resident said she made the startling discovery on 8 January when she went to the Home Affairs offices in uMgeni to renew her passport. When she finally arrived at the counter, after waiting in the queue for five hours, she was told that her ID had been blocked.
“They could not explain why it had been blocked. The lady at the counter just said ‘There is a mark on it’,” she said.
De Vos was instructed to re-apply for her ID, which she said she did the same day. “I was told I could expect to wait about six weeks to receive my new ID,” she said. However, 12 weeks down the line she had not received any feedback.
“I tried to phone to follow up with the progress but nobody could tell me anything. At some point they just stopped responding. During the March holidays no one answered the phones,” she said.
Out of pure desperation, De Vos returned to the Home Affairs office, where she was told that her ID was not ready. When she insisted to speak to somebody she was taken to the manager’s office. “She tried to help me but even she was unable to explain what had gone wrong. There was nothing on the system that could show us why my ID had been blocked. I could see that she was just as frustrated with the situation as I was,” added the resident.
De Vos said the manager had given her a printed piece of paper that showed that her ID application had been sent to and received by the investigative department in Pretoria on 8 March.
“It is unacceptable that it took two months for my application to reach that department, and even more so that it has been lying on someone’s desk since then without any correspondence. This simply cannot happen as people’s lives are affected. I was born here and have lived here my whole life, and have had no run-ins with the law,” she said.
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