Question NW635 to the Minister of Home Affairs

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04 April 2018 - NW635

Profile picture: Mashabela, Ms N

Mashabela, Ms N to ask the Minister of Home Affairs

What steps is his department taking to address the long queues that people have to stand in at the Pietermaritzburg office of Home Affairs?

Reply:

To address the issue of the long queues:

a) the office is being visited by approximately 500 clients that queue for services daily. The office has therefore increased the number of information points from one to two, and photo booth stations from one to two with the third installed and awaiting the additional equipment.

b) the office ensures that frontline application counters are always fully capacitated with staff members to ensure that services are rendered at all workstations in the office.

c) the Acting Office Manager does walkabouts on hourly intervals to address clients on the performance of the systems and officials.

d) once documents are ready for collection the owners are notified thereof via short messaging services (sms). This has also been a major push factor to the office when large volumes of documents are ready for collection. The office has therefore increased the number of counters on the inside to deal with the public that comes to collect their documents.

e) the office is in the process of replacing the ageing equipment to increase productivity.

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