Question NW1750 to the Minister of Home Affairs
17 May 2022 - NW1750
Weber, Ms AMM to ask the Minister of Home Affairs
(1)What number of days a week is the office of his department in the Dipaleseng Local Municipality open; (2) whether there are always staff members available to keep the office open when other staff members go on leave; if not, why not; if so, what are the relevant details; (3) whether the staff’s salaries have been changed to two days a week since the staff only works two days a week; if not, why not; if so, what are the relevant details; (4) (a) what does his department intend to do to ensure that the Dipaleseng office is fully resourced and open five days a week, (b) what are the reasons that the office only deals with birth and death certificates and not with identity documents (IDs) and (c) how will his department intervene to ensure that the residents do not travel to the nearest town to apply for their temporary or permanent IDs, as this is a very costly exercise?
Reply:
1. Balfour is a Small Office (Service Point), wherein DHA was allocated space in a Thusong centre by Dipaleseng Municipality to provide limited services. The office is open 5 days per week (Monday to Friday).
2. Balfour SP has 1 civic services employee and is attached to Secunda Office which has 7 civic services employees. During April 2022, Balfour office processed an average of 6 applications daily for birth registration and death registration, while Secunda office provided services to an average of (155) members of the public daily, during the same period. If the employee is on leave or off sick DHA is not able to allocate an employee to the SP due to capacity limitations, also considering that the demand for services at full service offices such as Secunda, Bethal, Ermelo, Standerton increases during peak season.
3. The employee’ s salary has not been changed as she is on duty 5 days per week.
(4) (a) The department is in the process to fill selected vacancies.
(b) The Small Office is not modernised and does not have the required number of staff to operate the modernised system.
(c) The Province has engaged the local Municipality and Department of Basic Education to identify mobile unit service points in Balfour and schools in the area, the mobile schedule allocation will start during the month of June 2022.
END