Matatiele residents cause influx at Kokstad’s Home Affairs Office
Matatiele residents cause influx at the KwaZulu-Natal’s Department of Home Affairs. Many have deserted the local office due to what they call negligence; the staff’s lack of will to assist people with the basic services such as application for Identity documents, Birth certificates, death certificates.
On Monday, while waiting outside the office in a long queue that seemed to have not been moving for a while, a middle-aged man accused Matatiele people of bribing their way through the offices “If you carefully observe what is happening here, you will that see most of these people are from Matatiele, it’s one person after the other. I do not even understand why they have to travel all the way to here because as local residents we now have to wait for hours to be assisted, something that is of recent,”
It has been over a year since the Eastern Cape Provincial Office visited Matatiele town and promised to have the home affairs office issue resolved. The provincial office officials blamed the poor performance of the office on the Covid-19 rules and regulations set by the government during the lockdown.
Last year, during an interview with The Informer, Member of Parliament deployed in Matatiele, Zola Mlenzane said the provincial office together with the relevant stakeholders have identified a suitable place where the home affairs office will be built to overcome the current appalling conditions people are subjected to.
Responding to one social media user on Facebook during a heated debate with regard to the state of the home affairs office, Mayor Momelezi Mbedla said The municipality has provided the department with the land to build its own office, however, that will not happen overnight” We shall not get tired of telling the people that the DOH is a National Department, which makes it very difficult to engage with at times but abantu mabayazi that where the department is currently it doesn’t have space of its own, where it may provide shelter to those wiating for service…
“The Municipality has for now provided the department a property that is opposite Whittle and Sons hardware, the Department is currently in a process of fixing the property so that it responds to its expectations. A long term arrangement is also in the cards for the department to build its own building, the Municipality has provided them with land to that effect. It is unfortunate ke that all this won’t happen overnight, and we also share the concerns of the people.”
Meanwhile, those who do not have the funds to travel to KwaZulu Natal’s Home Affairs, continue to braze the scorching heat outside the premises, if they are lucky and not chased away because the office only takes a limited number a day.
