Home affairs extends office hours

The Department of Home Affairs is extending its operating hours to 19h00 from 2 January to 10 January 2020 to meet the anticipated increase in demand for services during the period before the schools reopen. The extension of operating hours excludes the weekend, when the offices will be closed.

At the beginning of each year, the Department of Home Affairs experiences increases in demand for enabling documents such as issuance of smart ID cards and passports; birth and death certificates and for amendments and rectifications.

The Department will ensure that everyone who is inside an office at the time of closing receives required services. Office managers/supervisors are to apply their discretion to close the office 30 minutes prior to knock off time, subject to the number of people being serviced.

This is to allow officials to conclude all the necessary work before 19h00. The Department encourages people intending to visit the offices to do so as early as they can on their preferred day.

‘We hope the period of extended operating hours will enable people who have applied for smart ID cards but were unable to collect them because of time constraints to come and collect them,’ the Department said in a statement. The Department is deeply concerned by the amount of uncollected smart ID cards by people who have applied for them.

Home Affairs Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi congratulates parents of Christmas and New Year’s babies and urges them to register the births of the children at the Department of Home Affairs within 30 days.

After registration, the children will have birth certificates, their first enabling documents. People who do not have birth certificates usually have difficulties in acquiring other enabling documents and accessing some government services in future.