The Democratic Alliance (DA) has slammed home affairs minister Naledi Pandor for being "arrogant and out-of-touch" by expecting poor South Africans to pay R140 to apply for a new smart ID card.
Pandor yesterday responded to a Parliamentary question saying all South Africans will be expected to pay the fee to get a smart ID card, with the exception of all persons on the South African Social Security Agency database and all 16-year-olds who are first-time applicants.
According to DA shadow minister of home affairs Manny de Freitas, he requested Pandor to provide clarity on the fees and she advised that, as the smart cards are to be rolled out over approximately six years, poor people will have the time to save for the fee.
"For millions of South Africans, R140 is literally the difference between survival and starvation, and the new smart ID card price poses a serious threat to their financial security," says De Freitas. "When a person is poor and his/her priority is to put food in their stomachs, an ID fee will not feature high on the person's list of priorities."
De Freitas says there should be a system in place where citizens can apply to be exempt from the application fee provided they prove they cannot afford it.
"We will continue to fight so that poor people are exempt from paying a fee for the smart IDs."
He notes that forcing people to pay for a new ID when they cannot afford it, will lead to citizens not applying for smart ID cards, thereby further marginalising the poor.
"They will be excluded from electoral and social security processes once the green barcoded IDs are phased out. The Department of Home Affairs should spend less money on expensive trips and fancy cars, like the minister of finance said, and budget to cover the costs of poor people's IDs."
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