Question NW1256 to the Minister of Home Affairs

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03 December 2019 - NW1256

Profile picture: Graham, Ms SJ

Graham, Ms SJ to ask the Minister of Home Affairs

(a) Why has the gender of a certain person (name and details furnished) still not been amended from male to female after 18 months as per the request submitted on 6 April 2018 and (b) what (i) are the outstanding issues and (ii) is the envisaged time frame for resolution of this matter?

Reply:

a) The application process for amendments and rectifications is manual and non-automated thereby entails the manual retrieval of records prior to it being finalised. Applications in this regard are forwarded by front offices to head office and upon receipt thereof by the postal receipts unit, all such applications would then be sent to fingerprint verification unit and ultimately to the amendment section for final processing. Once the application is received at amendments, the birth records have to be traced from the archives based at various storage facilities. The turnaround time for the amendment process is eight (8) weeks. This is however subjected to the availability of record as there are instances where there is no trace of records which results in the applicant being notified to complete forms DHA 24 and DHA 288 for the re-construction of such records. The Department has approximately 286 million records in its possession and these records are paper based. Records have to be searched manually which causes further delays. However, the concerned persons’ matter was revisited and all issues have been addressed.

b) i) There are no outstanding issues.

ii) This matter was finalized and the gender was amended from male to female as at 21st October 2019. A new identity number of a female has subsequently been allocated.

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