Question NW765 to the Minister of Home Affairs

Reply:

• The Office Manager, Supervisors and floorwalkers manage long queues outside the offices and using manual ticket system to serve clients.
• The public is given information relating to the requirements of various applications/ services in the morning before they enter the office.
• The collection clients are also verified by service manager to avert a situation where the clients come to the office to check personally even if they did not receive the text SMS.
• The collection counter is strategically placed to allow efficient and better flow of queues.
• People with disabilities, the elderly, pregnant women and breast feeding mothers are prioritised and those who applied on line are also prioritised.
• All the Births, Marriages and Death re-issues of certificates are prioritised as they are already on the system and most can be issued on the spot.
• Back office staff assists at the front office during peak and high volume periods in line with the operations management principles.

To alleviate long queues at offices the Department has piloted the Branch Appointment Booking System at some live capture offices for Smart ID Card and Passports applications, as well as for the collections of both documents during the 2021/22 financial year. This system will allow clients to make a booking (appointment) and visit the office on the day and time of the appointment without standing in queues. The system will be rolled out to other identified high volume offices in the next years.

The Department also has a strategy to expand its infrastructure and its footprint, whereby currently twenty eighty (28) bank branches which are operational and available to service clients requiring DHA services. As part of the outreach programmes, mobile units are being deployed to far flung areas to deliver services to the public. There is currently a fleet of hundred (100) Mobile Units across the country. An additional ten (10) mobile units are being procured to increase the footprint in the department. The plan is to have all ten mobile units delivered before end of this financial year 2021/22.

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