Poor service a bad affair

POLOKWANE – Residents say employees at the department of home affairs need to be educated on batho pele principles to improve their attitude and behaviour towards clients.

“The personnel at home affairs treat us like animals, not people. They are rude and act like they are doing people a favour by helping them. At the department there is only a certain number of people allowed into the building at a time; the rest have to wait outside in the sun until they are called. By 15:00 the people waiting outside are told to go home and come back the next morning because the department will only help those who are inside. People who are inside the building are only helped until 16:30 and are also told to come back the next day,” a resident said.

A 74-year-old woman, who was recently advised by the South African Social Security Agencies (Sassa) to apply for her smart card, also experienced bad service at the department.

“It took me three days to apply for my smart card. I went to home affairs on April 24, but was told only 50 people were helped on a Saturday and that I should come back during the week. I went back to home affairs on April 28. I made sure to be there before 08:00 and when I arrived there I was number 247. We queued outside the whole day and I only went inside the building at 12:00. There I was sitting in the queue for hours to take my picture. There are three photo booths, but only one was being used. Just before 17:00 my picture was taken and we were told that they were closing and we had to come back the next day,” the woman said.

She added that those who were with her were also very upset because it meant they were going to spent more transport money, which they did not have.

“The next day we waited for our fingerprints to be done and again there were three machines but only one was used. We waited for hours before we were eventually helped. I was told I would receive an SMS as confirmation of my application, and two weeks later another SMS that I must collect my smart card. To date I never received any SMS from the department,” the woman said.

Another resident said there were no ablution facilities at the department’s offices.

“There is a public toilet quite a distance from where their offices are and if you leave the queue you lose your space. There is a water available, butonly one cup for everyone to use,” the resident said.

Residents urged the department to have an ablution facility at their offices as well as more drinking cups as it was not hygienic for everyone to use the same cup to drink water from.

The residents also suggested that more people be deployed at the department so that all the fingerprints machines and photo booths could be open, as this would help speed up the service delivery process.

Home affairs office manager in Polokwane, Marjorie Segoale said the department strived at all times to provide efficient services to the community. She said, however, that the department was still experiencing some challenges.

“There are complaints and suggestion boxes available at the department and we appeal to people to use these boxes to give us feedback on service delivery. Their complaints or suggestions we use as guidelines to improve our service delivery,” she said.