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Mr Barbara de Vos has been struggling to apply for her Smart ID Card for almost two years now, but the Department of Home Affairs remains adamant that she is not allowed to apply as she was not born in South Africa.

Not all South Africans qualify for Smart ID card … yet

Date: 05 March 2018 By: Andries van Zyl

Louis Trichardt resident Ms Barbara de Vos has been struggling for almost two years now to apply for her new South African Smart ID Card, without any success or explanation from the Department of Home Affairs (DHA).

“They [DHA] told me straight: You are not entitled to one,” said Barbara. When asked why not, the DHA’s response left her fuming. “They say it is just like that – if you are not born in South Africa, you can’t get an ID card,” said Barbara.

Barbara was indeed born in England but became a naturalised citizen 21 years ago after marrying her Louis Trichardt husband, Pieter James de Vos. Three months later, she became a naturalised citizen and was issued a green barcoded ID book.

Although these green ID books are still legal, Barbara opted to apply for a new Smart ID Card in 2016, shortly after her Namibian-born husband had successfully obtained his new ID card. She also got fed up with continuously being asked by state departments, such as SASSA, why she still used her old green ID book?

Barbara said that at first, they did not make much of the DHA’s initial refusal to allow her to apply, attributing the refusal to technical hiccups with the implementation of the new system for applying for a Smart ID Card.

But they were wrong. Two years down the line and about 10 visits to the DHA’s office in Louis Trichardt later, Barbara is no nearer to getting her Smart ID Card. “They won’t let me fill anything in. They won’t even give me a form to fill in,” said Barbara. About five phone calls to the DHA’s offices in Thohoyandou also yielded the same response – Barbara is not allowed to apply for her new Smart ID Card.

The Zoutpansberger did a bit of research and found that a problem indeed appears to exist in issuing naturalised South African citizens not born in South Africa with their new Smart ID Card. In several articles found on the Internet, naturalised citizens bemoan their lot and frustration with not being allowed to apply for the new ID cards. Some even dubbed the new cards “Xenophobic” ID cards, while others stated that the DHA had demoted them to second-class citizens because they were not born in South Africa. This even though their green ID books list them as South African citizens. “If this is indeed the reason, then why has this never been a concern for the IEC, banks, the Register of Deeds etc? All of whom have readily accepted my ID book in the past, be it to cast my vote as a South African citizen, open a bank account or register a residential property in my name as a South African,” one irate citizen is quoted as having said. Several articles also request the DHA to make an announcement regarding this on their official website, but nothing has been done to date.

The DHA introduced the process of applying for new Smart ID Cards in July 2013. With 38 million South Africans being in possession of the old, green barcoded ID book, the DHA opted to implement the process in “phases”, starting with first-time applicants and senior citizens. This was done to streamline the process and prevent masses of people queuing at DHA offices. After that, only persons between 30 and 35 years of age were invited to apply and as from August 2016, all South African could apply. But, as stated, not all South African can apply. “No one can tell me why I am not entitled to get a ID Card, and I am not the only one. There are a lot of people who have been born outside South Africa,” said Barbara.

The Zoutpansberger managed to get a hold of local DHA office manager Mr Tshililo Kharidza on Monday. He indicated that he could not comment on the matter and referred the newspaper to the DHA’s Vhembe regional office in Thohoyandou. He did, however, confirm that citizens not born in South Africa were not allowed to apply for the new ID card.

Expecting a similar response from the regional office, the Zoutpansberger directed its enquiries directly to the national DHA spokesperson, Mr Thabo Mokgola.

Mokgola confirmed that naturalised citizens are indeed not able to apply for the new ID card at present. “The issuance of Smart ID cards is currently limited to South African citizens born in the country. Our systems have not been configured to include any individuals outside of this sector of the population. The department is working towards a full configuration of the system and will make an announcement once that process has been concluded,” said Mokgola.

As part of the original media enquiry sent to him, Mokgola was asked to explain the term “not born in the country” and if this included African countries such as Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, or whether the exclusion was limited to European countries only. He was also asked to indicate how many naturalised citizens were affected by the current system problems and what they were to do if their existing green ID book was lost or stolen? “Those who lose their documents may apply for [another] green barcoded ID,” said Mokgola. Once again he refrained from explaining what is meant by the term “born outside the country”, and neither did he give any statistics about how many people were affected by the “configuration” problem. For the time being, it looks as if naturalised citizens will just have to sit and wait until the DHA are able to process their applications.

 
 
 

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Andries van Zyl

Andries joined the Zoutpansberger and Limpopo Mirror in April 1993 as a darkroom assistant. Within a couple of months he moved over to the production side of the newspaper and eventually doubled as a reporter. In 1995 he left the newspaper group and travelled overseas for a couple of months. In 1996, Andries rejoined the Zoutpansberger as a reporter. In August 2002, he was appointed as News Editor of the Zoutpansberger, a position he holds until today.

 
 

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