Question NW2178 to the Minister of Home Affairs

Reply:

a) The Department has developed an ID distribution strategy and the following programs have been put in place to ensure that citizens receive their Identity documents on time before the commencement of the local government elections:

The Department has undertaken to prioritize its services to those who have applied for their identity documents ahead of the general elections by issuing election enabling documents, i.e. Identity Documents, and also to issue Temporary Identification Certificates (TIC’s) on the spot to those whose identity documents are lost.

• Targeted Communication intervention on uncollected Green Barcoded Identity Books and Smart Identity Cards.
• Provinces in collaboration with stakeholder forums will embark on public awareness campaigns for the distribution and collection of ID’s.
• Communities are encouraged to collect Identity documents already received at offices.
• Collections of ID smart cards are prioritised at all offices.
• Provinces to work with Stakeholders to deploy mobile units for people to collect their Green Barcoded Identity Books.
• Mobile Offices will be deployed to service a cluster of Voter Registration stations (Green Barcoded ID Books). Mobile trucks are also deployed in cooperation with the local government office of the premier to voter education programs throughout the provinces.
• Provincial managers to make announcement making use of local media.
• Rescan all Green Barcoded Identity Books on hand on track and trace to reactivate the Short Message System (SMS) to clients informing them to collect IDs.
• A contingency plan to provide back office support services, where its front offices are experiencing problems with issuance of ID’s and TIC’s enabling documents.
• Clients to contact the Call Centre using 0800 60 11 90 to establish the status of their Identity Documents.
• Lastly, the Department plans to extend its operational hours during the Voters Registration Weekend as well as on the scheduled Election day(s). It is against this backdrop that the Department has aligned its working hours with those announced by the Independent Electoral Commission(IEC). On the weekend of the 18th and 19th September 2021, all DHA offices will be opened in order to fast track the processing of identity document applications and to ensure that all persons who are legible to vote are not excluded from participating in the next upcoming local government elections.

b) There were no identity documents that got lost during the unrest of July 2021 in both KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) and Gauteng provinces. However, in KZN only three offices were accessed during the unrest namely Vulamehlo, Eshowe and Impendle. All three offices reported that no documents of value were lost during the unrest as the areas where the documents were stored were not accessed. In Gauteng province, at Bara Mall (Soweto) office only, death registers that were already recorded on the system and ready for dispatch for archival purposes were damaged during the unrest due to burst water pipes, however all citizens who were affected applied for death certificates, and received them the same day.

END