Home Affairs collapse: Phones are not answered, emails are ignored, and people are forced to wait in queues for hours

Many South Africans experience poor service at Home Affairs offices, where calls go unanswered, emails are ignored, and people have to stand in queues for hours.

Newsday has received information from people who have had to deal with Home Affairs, and they all tell the same story.

The department’s phone lines seldom work, calls are unanswered, and employees don’t respond to emails.

This means they are forced to visit a Home Affairs branch, which is equally frustrating because of poor service.

One person who contacted Newsday shared his experience trying to obtain an unabridged birth certificate at Home Affairs.

He first tried calling the Department of Home Affairs using the numbers listed on its eHomeAffairs website. These lines were not answered.

A test by MyBroadband revealed that the lines ring for approximately a minute before the calls were automatically terminated. This is what he reported as well.

He then tried the direct numbers listed for his individual Home Affairs office. However, these numbers did not work at all.

The last digital option was to email the Department of Home Affairs for help. The officials ignored the emails, and he did not receive a response.

This forced him to visit a Home Affairs branch to get an unabridged birth certificate. This turned out to be a nightmare.

On his first try, he arrived early in the morning, but the long queues moved so slowly that he was forced to leave at midday as he had responsibilities in the afternoon.

He arrived even earlier on his second try, but this time, the queue hardly moved for five hours, which, again, forced him to leave before he was served.

He contacted Newsday again on his third attempt and sent photos which showed the long queue. He was armed with a chair to ensure he was prepared for the wait.

Although the office was supposed to open at 08:00, this did not happen. It only opened at 08:10, ten minutes after the doors were supposed to open.

This time around, he reached a Home Affairs official. However, he was told that the unabridged birth certificate was not yet available.

He was told that it would take longer than the initially estimated 3 months and would only be available after approximately 6 months. He must return then.

Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber made big promises

The problems with poor service levels from the Department of Home Affairs are not new, and South Africans have grown accustomed to it.

However, the experiences shared by users remain concerning. There is no reason for Home Affairs not to answer their phones or respond to emails.

The Department receives billions from taxpayers annually to provide services, which include answering phones and emails.

Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber highlighted these problems after being appointed to the role by President Cyril Ramaphosa on 30 June 2024.

“The Department of Home Affairs has become synonymous with poor service levels and failed service delivery,” he said.

“Home Affairs touches everyone’s lives. That is exactly the portfolio we should focus on turning around, as it was the most broken part of citizen-facing service delivery.”

“That is why I want to take Home Affairs from Hell Affairs to Hope Affairs. I want to show that you can take something which people have given up on and improve it.”

He added that forcing South Africans to queue for hours or days for documentation deprives them of their daily wages and disrupts the economy.

Schreiber has made great strides in modernising the Department of Home Affairs and making it easier for people to get Smart IDs and passports.

This was done by partnering with the big banks through the ‘Home Affairs @ home’ initiative, which has worked well.

He is also working on many new initiatives which will further enhance the department’s digital services and make it possible to get documents online.

However, to date, he has failed to adequately address the unpleasant experience of visiting a Home Affairs branch.

South Africans continue to loathe visiting a Home Affairs office, as it remains, as Schreiber called it, Hell Affairs.