GOOD speech by Brett Herron,
GOOD: Secretary-General & Member of Parliament
24 May 2022
Note: This is the speech that was delivered by GOOD Secretary-General and Member of Parliament, Brett Herron, during today’s Parliamentary Budget Vote on Home Affairs.
If Eskom is the yardstick for the State’s operational inefficiencies, the Department of Home Affairs must come a close second.
Having to queue endlessly to access official documents is not just a matter of inconvenience. For many in our country it’s more a matter of life and death. They depend on these documents, to which they should be entitled, in order to access grants, travel documents, refugee papers to retain jobs and maintain livelihoods.
Getting an Identity Document in South Africa in 2022 should be more or less as simple as opening a bank account. The reason it’s simple to open a bank account is because banks understand that if they make it complicated or unpleasant potential customers will go elsewhere.
The problem for Home Affairs’ customers is that there’s nowhere else to go.
It is poorer people, as usual, who suffer the worst consequences.
A recent site visit by departmental officials highlighted the fact that many people are unable to access social grants because they don’t have original identity documents. According to people in the queue, temporary identity documents don’t work to access a social grant.
Before Covid, the department was battling to stay afloat trying to manage a growing backlog of applications with outdated operating systems, reduced operating hours and staff shortages. Now it appears to be sinking.
Many people who already struggle to put food on the table are expected to pay for temporary identity documents, and again later for the actual document. Those who can’t afford these fees have no alternative but to wait until they can, and the poverty cycle continues.
Both the department and the South African Social Services Agency (SASSA) have introduced a new online system to book appointments and access various services. To book an appointment a person needs to visit the website and enter their SA identity number.
Online appointments are ideal in a world with proper infrastructure and management, and access to affordable data. That is not the case for South Africans living below the poverty line. Here, we want efficient online systems but we also need efficient and accessible counter service.
What we have is that those citizens who are able to make bookings online receive appointments two or three months away. When the due date dawns they get up in the dark to hit the queue early.
But when they eventually get to the front they must brace themselves for further delays. They must come back again.
And when they do, there’s loadshedding.
South Africans have the right to be able to prove their identity.
We have a duty to ensure that that right, and all the services associated with being able to identify who you are, including voting, are not denied because an ID document is unaffordable and inaccessible.
Media enquiries:
Brett Herron, GOOD: Secretary-General & Member of Parliament
Cell: 0825183264
Email: bretth@forgood.org.za
Samkelo Mgobozi, GOOD: Media Manager
Cell: 0792315977 (whatsapp)/0829684021 (calls)
Email: samm@forgood.org.za