Banks helping to ease burden for Home Affairs services
Recently, I came across an interesting article in Businesstech and I wanted to share what I read with anyone else who might not have come across the story.
An important extract from the story reads, I quote: “The department of home affairs has revealed that the banks offering smart ID and passport services experienced significantly less downtime due to system-related and load-shedding than the traditional home affairs offices.
The Eastern Cape (EC) experienced the longest systemrelated downtime (4,935 hours), followed by Gauteng (4,678) and Mpumalanga (4,024). In terms of load-shedding, KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) experienced the longest downtime (3,200 hours), followed by Limpopo (2,697) and Gauteng (2,139).
“Overall, the EC experienced the most downtime due to system-related issues or load shedding (7,074 hours), followed by KZN (6,400) and Gauteng (5,362).”
We all know the issues that we’ve experienced when we visit the home affairs offices. I had to get an ID for my daughter and at some point, had to renew my passport.
So naturally, I went to home affairs to do it. I had read a while back that banks would also be offering this service but because I didn’t follow up on this story and how this works —I ended up doing what I normally do.
Because of force of habit, I woke up early and prepared to be there waiting in line so that I could be attended to as early as possible and go back to work.
Banks didn’t come up as an option for me at all, in fact I had completely forgotten about the service being provided there as well.
I later found out that the service is actually not available in any of the bank branches in my area, but I still found the story informative and wanted to share what I know with everyone.
While I was at home affairs, there were times when the system went down and we had to wait until it came up again.
Yes, it was an inconvenience but because I had already committed myself I endured.
However, when I came across this story I thought about all our people that live in rural areas that wake up in the wee hours of some of the coldest mornings to get to Komani to use the services of the department.
In most cases, people do it because they have to obtain their IDs or passports for the first time or even renew their documents, only to find the system being down for the whole day and they have to come back the next day or week.
You need to understand that some of our people don’t have the time or the money to pay for transport two or three times in a month to visit the offices of home affairs, only to be told that the system is down.
My heart bleeds when I hear such stories because some people are desperate for these documents because they need them for something important.
It might be a young person looking to replace a lost document or to apply for an ID needed for a university entrance process or a job opportunity.
It might even be a small business person who wants a passport so that they could explore trade opportunities with countries outside our borders. It is usually something important and the visit to these offices could have a positive or negative effect on someone’s life.
It is especially so when it is something or an opportunity that is urgent, that needs documentation from these offices.
For our people to avoid disappointment especially when there’s load-shedding and save some of the travelling costs I would like to advise those that are close to or stay in areas where banks that include Absa, FNB, Standard Bank, Nedbank, Investec and Discovery, have branches that work with home affairs to use this service.
Granted, the way banks work is that the applications or renewals of smart ID or passports is done via an online process and only once the documents are ready, can you collect them from one of the banks’ branches that work with the home affairs.
So, for those who are not too familiar with online or digital services and have bank branches working with home affairs close to where you stay, please ask young people in your area to help you apply online using your phone.
Please bear in mind that there are only about 30 branches in SA that have a partnership with home affairs and no walk-ins are allowed at banks.
You can only visit a bank branch once you have made an online application and booked your visit.
The list of branches that work with home affairs are in this link: https://www.dha.gov.za/index.php/idsmart-card/bank-branches.
Now, I’d like to plead with home affairs and bank branches in our area to please bring these services closer to our people especially in remote parts of the Eastern Cape, where issues of system downtimes seem to be prevalent. These are some of the most important services that our people urgently need.
Miranda Lusiba
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