Johannesburg- Minister Naledi Pandor today, Saturday 8 February 2014 visited Home Affairs Harrison Street offices in Johannesburg as part of the department’s campaign to render assistance to those citizens who require identity documents for purposes of voter registration.
Minister Pandor’s visit to Harrison Street offices comes within the context of the decision to open all Home Affairs offices countrywide from 08h00-17h00 during the weekend of 8-9 February in support of the IEC’s final voter registration weekend. In addition the department has deployed its senior managers from Pretoria as well as mobile units to assist in the work of the department in all provinces.
As part of its duty to support the IEC during the voter registration weekend, the department is issuing identity documents, temporary identity certificates while encouraging those who have applied for ID’s but have not collected them to do so during the weekend. In agreement with the IEC both the current bar-coded IDs and smart ID cards will be acceptable as legal forms of identity for purposes of registration and voting
In pursuance of this objective, the department has recently called on youths of 16 years and above as well as pensioners who are 60 years and above to apply for Smart ID cards in the 28 Home Affairs offices earmarked to take smart ID card applications with effect from 01 February 2014.
In this context , it has come to the attention of Minister Pandor that some citizens who recently applied for smart ID cards have failed to collect their cards from the home affairs offices despite repeated sms messages sent to advise them to do so. We wish to inform the citizens that it takes 10 days from date of application to delivery of the smart ID cards. We therefore call on all those who have applied for the smart ID cards to visit offices of application to collect them.
We take this opportunity to advise the public that Home Affairs will remain open on Sunday 9 February 2014 to assist those citizens who require enabling documents to register to vote during this final registration weekend.
Issued by Department of Home Affairs, 909 Arcadia Street, Pretoria, 0001
Contact: Ronnie Mamoepa at 082 990 4853, 08 February 2014