Question NW5 to the Minister of Home Affairs
01 March 2016 - NW5
Khubisa, Mr NM to ask the Minister of Home Affairs
What measures does he intend putting in place to alleviate the difficulties at some offices of his department where well over 500 citizens queue up from as early as 04:00 am in order to obtain their unabridged birth certificates and are turned away at 16:00 due to his department not being able to process the certificates?
Reply:
In general there is no high influx of clients seeking unabridged certificates (UBC) at our offices. No long queues are experienced solely for the purposes of UBCs at any of our offices in the provinces. The only exception was during the past festive season and we envisage the same during holidays/ peak travel season. However, letters in lieu of Unabridged Birth Certificates are issued to clients who applied and did not receive the Unabridged Birth Certificates for travelling purposes within our turnaround time.
Applications taken are captured daily to improve turnaround time. All the queries received, including those for Unabridged Birth Certificates, are attended to on the spot and clients are not turned away due to this department not being able to process their certificates.