In just 31 days, the Department of Home Affairs has cleared a backlog of 247,500 ID applications!
Minister of Home Affairs, the DA’s Leon Schreiber, is delivering on his commitment to build an effective department that delivers dignity to all South Africans.
The Department of Home Affairs cleared a backlog of nearly 250 000 identity documents within a month.
The backlog started accumulating in November last year following a change of IT service providers.
The changeover created bottlenecks in multiple areas of the production value chain – from the office of application to application authentication, printing, and the final issuing of the ID.
Nearly a quarter of a million applications became stuck in a growing backlog.
R45 000 for a passport, R1 000 for a birth certificate: How Home Affairs officials are selling SA
Undocumented migrants have been buying South African birth certificates for as little as R1 000, while a passport can cost up to R45 000.
According to Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber, 109 corruption cases were reported to the department’s Counter Corruption and Security Services branch for investigation.
Brazen syndicate leaders and officials operate at night at home affairs department centres across the country to process the illegal documents.
Responding to a written parliamentary question from the EFF’s Yazini Tetyana, Schreiber said a strategy had been developed to effectively manage fraud and corruption risks.
