Cape Town residents get a new way to beat home affairs queues

For 22-year-old Tamara Khumsha, losing her identity document five months ago meant facing a daunting choice: endure the long queues at home affairs or go without one.

The prospect of spending hours at the department’s Cape Town offices had put her off applying for a replacement. But after hearing about the new home affairs office at the Cape Town Civic Centre, she decided to try her luck.

Khumsha was among 148 people who applied for services at the new office. Her experience was a stark contrast to her first application.

“When I first applied for an ID, I had to wait for a month. I was shocked when I received a message a week after I had reapplied for my ID to come and fetch it,” said Khumsha.

For thousands of Capetonians, visiting home affairs has become synonymous with long queues, hours of waiting and the frustration of being turned away when computer systems go offline.

Residents seeking identity documents, passports and other essential services have faced administrative backlogs and repeated system failures, often losing an entire day that could otherwise have been spent at work, school or with their families.

The opening of the new office at the civic centre is aimed at changing that experience by offering home affairs services closer to where people already live, work and access other government services.

On Monday, City of Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis and home affairs minister Leon Schreiber officially opened the facility, which the city described as the first municipal facility to host a new national department of home affairs office.

The office operates on an appointment-only basis, allowing clients to access services without having to endure the queues associated with the department’s busy Barrack Street office.

Hill-Lewis said the civic centre was already one of the busiest buildings in the city, particularly during the December school holidays, when tens of thousands of Capetonians visit to access municipal services.

“Why not allow them to do a couple of things and get a lot of business done at the same place at the same time?” he said.

Hill-Lewis said the partnership with home affairs was part of the city’s broader effort to make accessing government services easier for residents.

Schreiber acknowledged that home affairs still had a long way to go, but said the department had made significant progress over the past two years.

“We know the job isn’t done. We know that we have made progress in removing the sense that our department is a swear word, a negative thing. We want to become a point of pride for South Africa,” he said.