A first hand encounter with Home Affairs new online appointment system
I also asked the officer why there is a need to book an appointment when we still have to wait. He mumbled an answer and told me to go and wait outside.
People are saying that the newly-launched Branch Appointment Booking System (BABS) is dysfunctional – well, in Dundee at least. So Courier journalist Fathima Zubane decided to try out the system for herself, following complaints from readers that despite them booking an appointment, they still had to queue up at the offices in downtown Willson Street. The following is an account of her day…
“This system promised to make life easier for Home Affairs clients and cut down on queues. I recently made an appointment through BABS for my ID application at the Dundee branch.
“Navigating the system itself is fairly easy, so I picked my date and appointment time, which was 10:00 to 11:00. According to the system, I should’ve been done by 11 o’clock. Well, that was not the case… I came in just before 10:00 and to my surprise, there was already a long line of people queuing outside.
“When I asked around, most of the people in the line were there for 10 o’clock appointments. In my head, this did not make sense already, because I knew that we were not going to all be attended to within that hour.
“A few minutes went by and I saw that no Home Affairs personnel had come to attend to us. I proceeded inside and asked the security guard when I would be seen to. He calmly said ‘go and wait outside – you will be called in’.
Half an hour went by and none of us were called in. Now I was really losing my patience, because this meant there was no need for the BABS booking if we still had to stand outside for hours on end.
I went back inside and demanded to see the manager or any of the employees. When they finally showed up, I asked them why no one had been called in – 45 minutes later. I was told that they were still waiting to see whether the lights would go off!
I also asked the officer why there is a need to book an appointment when we still have to wait. He mumbled an answer and told me to go and wait outside.
To cut a long story short, we were only seen an hour and a half after our appointment schedule. This, in turn, meant that everyone who had appointments after us would also be delayed.
Mbongeni Mhlongo, manager at Dundee Home Affairs said that the only challenge they are facing with BABS is load-shedding because during load-shedding the internet takes about 45-mins to kick in. “Therefore there is a delay for those who come in for their appointments.
