Home Affairs

Apologies, I know I haven't blogged in ages. Mainly because blogger.com has been giving me hassles. But also because I have been powering on with work - I have quite a serious amount of work to do at the moment!!

Now blogger.com seems to be working again, so I resolved to blog. But I keep starting posts and then losing focus.

There is just one thing I do want to comment on though. I stumbled across this article on iol. It is about a young guy who managed to get a job, he just needed to produce his ID book to start working. But Home Affairs messed him around, told him he couldn't get it for whatever reason. And he ended up committing suicide.

My flat mate said she saw Minister Dlamini-Zuma speaking about it on TV. The minister was broken about it, tearful.

And you know, I am sure that she is a caring lady. And of course, of course, she isn't personally responsible for this tragedy.

But to be honest (and a bit brutal) I think it is about time that these kinds of high up officials realise what their departments are doing. When things aren't working, when ID books are getting lost or sold, taking months and years to process, when work permits are withheld for no reason other than the belligerence of Home Affairs staff who want a few hundred bucks for the effort of giving you the correct forms. When these government departments are messing up, people's lives are being messed up. People rely on the services of these departments. When they are not working, it causes people real problems.

It is not a small problem. It is a huge problem that impacts on many people's lives.

A kid I know has spent close to four years (FOUR YEARS!!! FOUR YEARS!!!) trying to get his ID document sorted out. He must be about 20ish. Somehow his name and ID number have been duplicated by someone in Joburg. Does this mean that some Home Affairs official in Joburg sold his ID so someone? I have no idea. But what it does mean for him is that Home Affairs still won't give him an actual ID book. Which means that his NSFAS student loan keeps refusing to pay his fees. Which means his results get withheld. It means he nearly lots his pace in residence at the beginning of this year, and very nearly lost it again this term. I've been helping him shout at people about this for the past 7 months. To no avail. Still no ID book, still empty promises by Home Affairs.

Come back after two weeks, he is told. How many months or years do you keep that up?

So I say, yes, Mrs Minister, stand in front of the TV and cry. Go home and lie in your bed and cry. Not because this is your personal fault, of course not. But because there are people crying all over our country because of your department. There are people who queue over and over again, only to be told to go away. There are people who travel long distances to get to their nearest Home Affairs office, only to be met with unyielding bureaucracy, with closed doors, with inefficient systems and disinterested people. There are people who eventually resort to buying IDs, work permits, residency papers. Not because they are corrupt people, but because the only way to get things done is to grease people's palms. And if you have no money to buy them... well, sorry for you.

We know you just stepped into your job. We appreciate that you really seem committed to it. We really hope you do well. We really hope you manage to turn things around.

But for the moment, we want you to cry. Every day we want you to go into the office under the weight of the helplessness and hopelessness of thousands of South Africans who contend with your department. And then we want you to fix it.

And then we will rejoice with you.




* I just found a more detailed story about the Minster's response here. "She said the department was a "difficult" one, which had never had a proper culture of service." - indeed!