Acquiring a new passport is - as we all know - never fun. It's even less fun when I have to go through the fill-in-the-forms and get my thumb inked twice process. Hearing that the forms seem to have been misplaced is not the sort of thing that puts me in a good mood.
What put me in a worse mood for dealing with Home Affairs was that the entire debacle meant rising at a ridiculous hour, at the beginning of February, to stand in a queue. Queuing is apparently still necessary even though I had signed up the queue-for-you folk.
On the bright side, I figured, I will soon have a temporary passport and can again be allowed to legitimately leave our shores. My comfort was also partially induced by knowing the process was over, and I could collect my passport down the road and not from Home Affairs.
Gleeful
Gleefully, I bounded down the boulevard to be handed my permanent passport.
Nicola Mawson, senior journalist, ITWeb
Three weeks after my second application, I started e-mailing to request my temporary passport. About a week later, like a long-awaited love letter, I was told I could collect.
Gleefully, I bounded down the boulevard to be handed my permanent passport. This must be close on a record for the department: less than a month for a permanent passport. And yes, it was the second application that made it through.
Ironically, of course, I would still like my temporary passport even though it is rendered useless. The point is: I paid for it.
Despite the brilliance of Home Affairs this time around, I doubt many of our other citizens receive such exemplary service. A colleague has been trying in vain for four years to get a duplicate birth certificate. This, being the sort of document one should keep handy in a safe place, appears to be beyond the department's expertise.
Apparently, all the computerised records pertaining to this piece of paper were destroyed. Going down into the archives to fetch the hard copy is clearly too much to ask.
Laughable
So, with such deplorable consistency of service standards, one can only wonder what the department will do when faced with the need to quickly process mammoth amounts of paperwork.
Most companies would turn to technology. Home Affairs has been trying for years to implement the national identification system - or Hanis.
Its one laughable attempt at keeping citizens in touch seems to be out of touch. The SMS query system, which has been down for the past few days, previously confidently told me I had no application in the system. Ironic, when the passport was days away from delivery.
All of this begs the question: When will the department actually get its ducks in order? What will happen with 2010? Is there actually light at the end of the tunnel?
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