Home Affairs service is and remains 'catastrophic'

11th of March 2010

The apparent lack of service delivery at the Department of Home Affairs is in many ways catastrophic.

Notwithstanding the intention of the legislature as described in the preamble of the Immigration Act, Act 13 of 2002 and its Amendment, Act 19 of 2004 to ensure that the Immigration processes and procedures are managed without any undue administrative delays, the Department's actual service delivery can sometimes be described as no service at all. The Department of Home Affairs is still in desperate need to get its administration right!

The policy of the Department of Home Affairs and other Departments of State, 'Batho Pele' is described in http://www.dpsa.gov.za/batho-pele/Principles.asp. These principals have at their basis the desire to put people first. This would indicate putting the needs of foreign nationals who are in fact clients of the Department of Home Affairs first.

However, to put people first, the Department of Home Affairs needs to get some basics right. One of these is the employment of the competent staff. The last two weeks the Department of Home Affairs once again highlighted the utter lack of proper administrative zeal in that officials were not provided with the long awaited renewal of their contracts. This has had the result that many of the officials trained in dealing with applications refused to work. The Department of Home Affairs was forced to work with a skeleton staff. The effect has been the creation of new delays in addition to the delays already existing.

It is therefore imperative to ensure that you apply for the extension or renewal of your permit well before the deadline. Remember: The mere submission of the application does not provide protection or create rights in itself. You need the valid permit endorsed in your passport in order to conduct the activity you are planning to conduct!