Nightmare at Home Affairs
bank branch — where the system also goes offline
Broadband – 1 April 2022
There is
no guarantee that using one of the few Home Affairs branches located at South
Africa’s major banks will offer a seamless experience.
Many
South Africans, including MyBroadband’s
journalists, have had relatively
trouble-free excursions to apply for and collect their smart ID
cards or passports at these offices.
These
facilities offer an alternative to standing in snaking queues at large Home
Affairs offices, which have become infamous for slow service and frequent
downtime.
Bank-based
Home Affairs units require that the initial application and payments are
handled on the E-Home Affairs portal, cutting down the time spent at the
branch.
They also
don’t offer the myriad of other services available at main Home Affairs
offices, reducing the volume of visitors.
But those
benefits were not experienced by one Hillcrest resident and software engineer,
who recently applied for a renewal of his passport via one of these branches.
While
banks provide Home Affairs with floor space and reliable infrastructure, they
do not operate them or provide their systems.
As the
engineer’s ordeal illustrates, bank-based Home Affairs branches still rely on
government systems and can suffer from similar problems as traditional offices.
My tale
begins on 31 January 2022, when I was finally able to log into the Home Affairs
e-services website to process an application for a new passport.
The
site’s response times were generally slow, and I often struggled to get my
one-time pin (OTP) to proceed with the application.
Miraculously,
on one of my attempts, I finally did get my OTP and was able to log in.
The
online process of applying for the passport and paying for it was relatively
painless.
The
difficult part was getting a booking at my nearest FNB branch that handles ID
and Passport applications.
To do
this, I had to manually alter the “from” and “to” dates when looking for an
appointment.
I managed
to get an appointment for about a month later, on 28 February at 09:00 AM.
My
closest branch was at a Cornubia Mall close to Umhlanga, 45km from my home in
Hillcrest.
I hadn’t
dealt with Home Affairs in a while, but I had heard the horror stories of going
to Home Affairs’ main offices located in Pinetown and Musgrave.
I did not
want to go through that, so I reckoned it was worth the drive as I surely
wouldn’t have to wait long with my appointment time.
A queue at first sight
On the
day of my appointment, I arrived at Cornubia Mall and was greeted with a very
long queue of more than 100 people outside the FNB branch.
It turns
out that you will see this every day that the Home Affairs office operates,
which are only weekdays.
After
enquiring with other people waiting, I discovered there was a queue for
collections, which was very long, and a queue for applications, which was not
as long.
Despite
being in the latter, I waited for about an hour as they had to do applications
for people who didn’t get their applications done the day before, because the
system had been offline.
After
waiting for about an hour and a half, my ID number was called.
Inside
the branch, I had to sit and wait in another queue as they only allowed a
certain amount of people inside the bank and then processed them in batches.
Here, it
took about another 30 minutes before it was my turn.
During
this time. I observed what the actual process was to do a straightforward
application.
These are
applications that didn’t have any complexities with birth country or the like.
The
process for a new passport application was as follows:
- Provide your ID
- Sign your name on an
electronic device
- Scan thumbprint
- Sit down to take a picture
If done
without any delays, this should not take more than two or three minutes.
The issue
was that every time the Home Affairs employee had completed an application, the
camera was no longer picked up by the system.
The only
way to get the system to detect the camera again was to reboot the computer,
which took about 10 minutes.
After it
rebooted, there was a modal popup listing all the hardware devices linked to
the system — like the fingerprint scanner and camera — with little check marks
next to them to indicate that they were functional.
Whenever
they rebooted, the camera would have a little cross next to it to show that the
system did not pick it up, at which point the Home Affairs employee got up and
turned the camera off and on again.
The
system then picked up the camera and displayed a tick.
Unplugging
the camera and plugging it back in or turning the camera on and off was not
enough.
They had
to do the whole reboot process to have the modal pop up and show the devices
and their online status.
I think
adding a button somewhere that could re-initialise all connected hardware
without having to reboot the system every time, would most likely make this
process much quicker.
My
application was eventually processed successfully and I was out two hours after
my appointment was booked.
I
received an SMS confirming my application and was told Home Affairs would
contact me when my passport was ready for collection.
Less than
two weeks later, I got an email and SMS that said my passport would be ready
for collection from 9 March. I finally had the time to go and collect it on 24
March 2022.
As I work
from home, I tell my boss I’ll be online a bit late, and I take the 45km drive
to Cornubia.
Because
the branch opened at 08:30, I ensured I was there 10 minutes earlier.
Collection chaos
By the
time I arrived at the branch, there were already about 20 people in the
collections queue and many others with appointments for new applications.
Little
did I know that a bunch of those people were there for collections after not
getting their IDs or passports the previous day.
They had
been added to a special list to be processed first thing on the day of my
appointment. There were probably about 30 people on that list.
I started
waiting, with the queue growing until there were more than 100 people behind
me.
The
branch only allowed six people into the bank at a time to be processed and that
was going painfully slow. It probably took about 30 minutes per batch of six.
For
reference, the process for the collection of IDs and passports was typically as
follows:
- Show your ID
- Sign the electronic device
that captures signatures
- Scan your thumbprint
In
theory, that should take less than a minute.
As I
listened to people talk, I learnt that some had been there two or three days
without getting their IDs or passports.
I
realised that I might be there all day and might still not get my passport.
At one
point, a security guard brought out a book for us to make a list of our ID
numbers to be processed and I was about 20th from the top of that list.
Around
10:30, after being there for two hours, I started getting worried that I would
have to make a tough decision soon — either take a day’s leave and risk not
getting processed or rather go home.
Surrender
At about
11:15, the lone Home Affairs employee who handled the collections came out and
called the last six people on the list from the previous day into the bank.
He duly
informed us waiting in the queue that he had bad news — the system was down.
At this
point, I decided that it was not worthwhile to waste a full day’s leave
standing in a queue, with the possibility of still not getting my passport.
I left
and travelled the 45km home, having wasted three hours of my day.
I don’t
know what to do now. How and when will I get my passport? Do I need to take two
days’ leave to do this and will there still be a chance that I won’t get it?
I’m a
software engineer, and for there to be any downtime in any production system
that so many people depend on is unacceptable.
It would
also help if there wasn’t just one person dedicated to handling collections at
the Cornubia branch with that massive backlog.
They must
have some fallback process in case the system is down, like offline processing
or signatures on paper.
I’m
hoping that Home Affairs fixes their systems and processes so that doing a
collection is as it should be — quick and painless — and only then will I go
back to try again.
www.samigration .com
