THE Portuguese community living in Zululand is in for a major blessing as all their documentation needs will soon be delivered to their doorstep.
This follows a visit to the City of uMhlathuze on Monday from the Consul General of Portugal in Johannesburg, Dr Luisa Fragosa.
Accompanied by Elias Antonio de Sousa from their Durban consular office, Dr Fragosa detailed plans for biannual ‘mobile office’ visits to this area.
‘We will be bringing all the consulate services to the area, negating the need for driving to Durban.
‘We bring along sophisticated IT equipment, including fingerprinting and camera capability, that allows those of Portuguese nationality or origin to immediately access any of the services we provide,’ said Dr Fragosa.
‘This includes passport applications, identity documents, visas, and child and marriage registrations.
‘It is an international service we are already providing to eight cities in South Africa at a pre-arranged venue.
‘As we have no data base of the Portuguese community in this region, that will be our first step, to ascertain the numbers who would want to use this facility, and what other needs they might have.
‘We are also hoping our presence will help to motivate the local Portuguese community to get together to celebrate important religious and cultural events,’ said Dr Fragosa.
‘I would be grateful to hear from them via the email elias.sousa@mne.pt so that we can make further arrangements as to what days and times would be preferred for our mobile visits.’
The first is planned for mid-May, followed by another in November.
