Congestion at the majority of Western Cape Home Affairs offices coupled with a staff shortage contributes to long queues.
The department said of the 28 offices in the province, 22 experienced high volumes on a daily basis and had 380 front office staff – figures labour unions slammed as low for a province with more than 7 million residents.
Warren Jacobs, 28, from Athlone, stood in a queue with hundreds of others outside the CBD branch. He needed to apply for an ID after he lost his over three years ago.
He said he has been trying to apply for a new ID after he was issued with a temporary document which he could not use to obtain a driver’s licence.
“I tried to go to the Home Affairs in Wynberg and Bellville – it is the same story, bad service.
“I need the licence so that I can be permanent at work. It is compulsory to have a driver’s licence,” said Jacobs.
Melvin Engelbrecht from Kraaifontein said he had been trying to get a passport for the past six weeks to take up a job offer in New Zealand.
The 44-year-old contractor, a breadwinner for his family of five, said losing out on the job offer would crush his dream of improving their lives.
Daylan Crawcour, from Bothasig, said: “I am here for the second time for a passport. I want to emigrate.
“I came here before and I was not assisted because I arrived a little bit late and the queue was already long. Today I arrived before 5.30am and they have been saying the system is off-line the whole day.”
The department conceded that system glitches and staff vacancies contributed to the challenges troubling offices in the province.
“Western Cape region was experiencing capacity challenges but were in the process of filling several vacancies,” said spokesperson Samuel Plaatjies.
“System challenges such as slowness, intermittent and off-line system impacts front offices’ ability to process applications speedily.
“The majority of clients queueing at Home Affairs in Western Cape are for Smart ID cards and passports.”
Plaatjies said the recently introduced branch-appointment booking system piloted at some of the larger offices was expected to ease the burden.
Spokesperson for the National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union Lwazi Nkolonzi said staffing at Home Affairs was inadequate to service to province’s population.
“People are not being employed. You need to have (proportional) ratio between the population and the number of staff needed,” said Nkolonzi.
Earlier this year, Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi announced his intention to have the department declared a security department so it could operate on weekends.
Nkolonzi said it was not going to be a good idea to open offices on weekends without hiring more people.
“The department needs to put pressure on the Treasury to allocate more money to hire people.