Home Affairs services limited during upgrade
Certain services will not be available at certain Home Affairs offices from November 27 to December 2, due to the current system upgrade of Live Capture facilities.
According to the Home Affairs Director-General, Mkuseli Apleni, the upgrade should be seen in the context of the department’s drive to improve processes for Smart ID card and passport applications. This includes ID and passport services. Other services will be available.
This applies only to the 140 Home Affairs Offices with the Live Capture System, thus whose services include the issuing of Smart ID Cards.
This includes Boksburg.
“During the upgrade, the affected offices will not be able to receive applications using the Live Capture system. For our staff, especially supervisors, this means working overtime on Sunday, November 29, for a successful upgrade and a speedy recovery to normal services as planned,” Apleni said.
“Full services, as enhanced, should resume on December 3.
Enhancements, which will favour clients, include introducing:
· A booking system on the e-channel, for people to apply for documents online, in the comfort of their homes or offices.
· A re-enrolment process in terms of which there will be no need to recapture fingerprints within a specified period of re-application.
“The last extensive system upgrade of the Live Capture facilities was in April, this year, Apleni said.
“The benefits to the clients included photo booth enhancements for improved queue management and improvements to systems we use to capture the data of clients that cannot be done through normal processes, for babies and persons with disabilities or those who have lost limbs.
“We appeal for patience, while apologising in advance for the inconvenience these necessary changes will have caused our clients.”
Boksburg residents are also reminded to apply for the Smart Card identity document.
“People need to come forward and apply for the Smart Card ID, as we are planning to discontinue the use of green bar-coded IDs at some stage, for all to have Smart Cards,” Apleni explained.
“Residents would also help us to improve the services that we provide, to the extent that they should discharge their civic responsibilities by collecting passports, IDs and Smart Cards, and to please collect them at the office where they applied, before November 27, to avoid last-minute disappointment.
“Messages would have been sent to the applicants whose documents are ready for collection, advising them to come and get their documents.
“Apart from the current systems upgrade, citizens have a duty to collect the documents for which they have applied; this is critical for securing citizenship and fighting, at all costs, identity fraud.”
