Despite the country being immersed in a global pandemic which demands people to keep their distance from each other, the Home Affairs Department’s e-services portal has been shut since the start of the lockdown in March.
Johannesburg – Despite the country being immersed in a global pandemic which demands that people their distance from each other, the Home Affairs Department’s e-services portal has been shut since the start of the lockdown in March.
On Friday, the department announced more services which would resume, but none of them included the utilisation of its e-HomeAffairs services portal, where people can apply for IDs and passports.
Home Affairs spokesperson Siya Qoza said the electronic service portal was closed in March because the department was not taking any ID or passport applications at the moment – except for first-issue smart card or green bar-coded ID documents – mostly for matric pupils.
He said the e-services portal was only used to apply for ID documents and passports and because the department was not yet offering those services, it would be futile to open the e-HomeAffairs service.
He said the department was operating at a reduced capacity with limited staff members to reduce risk.
When asked why Home Affairs had not altered its e-HomeAffairs service to include those services that were being offered, Qoza said it would make little difference as people still needed to go to a bank or home affairs branch to complete the process.
“We need to comply with the requirements of keeping staff members numbers low,” he said, explaining why ID, passport or e-HomeServices applications were not allowed.
Meanwhile, the department said it would release a statement next week to clarify its position on some of the services that would be returning under level 2.
Earlier on Friday, Home Affairs said it was resuming services for applications of first-issue green bar-coded identity documents or smart ID cards, applications for smart ID cards or green bar-coded IDs by people who had been issued with a temporary ID certificate during the national state of disaster that had expired; applications for amendments of personal particulars, applications for rectification of personal particulars, back office records retrieval services, and applications for citizenship.
Home Affairs said it was also extending the expiry date until October 31, 2020, for all temporary identity certificates issued during the period of the national state of disaster.
During the level 3 of the lockdown, which ended on Monday night, Home Affairs had resumed services for the registration of birth, re-issuing of birth certificates, late birth registrations, marriage services, death certificates, temporary identity document certificates, collection of IDs and passports for essential goods cross-border transporters.
All services permitted under level 3, 4, and 5, will be permitted during level 2.