MAKHADO (LOUIS TRICHARDT) – If you suffer the trauma of having your wallet with all your money, your bank cards, your ID and your passport stolen, your real nightmare only starts once your try to replace them all ...

Ms. Modjadi Stamm discovered this on Tuesday this week, when a street prowler tackled her car while she was only seconds and a few meters away.

She parked the vehicle outside a pharmacy in Songozwi Street and quickly ducked in to buy some cough syrup for her son. When she drove off, she heard the passenger door rattling and stopped to close it. The door was locked. Shortly afterwards, she discovered that her bag with cellphone, bank cards, ID and passport was missing.

It was the beginning of a drama which lasted almost eight hours – that was only on the first day.

The police, the bank and the cellphone service provider had to be phoned – with a borrowed phone. She dashed home to get the cellphone serial number for tracing. Dashed back to the police for a statement and fingerprinting of the car.

The police procedure lasted more than two hours.

To speed up the process to once again become a law-abiding driver, she had eight photos processed at R40 before approaching the municipality for a replacement driver’s license, only to be informed that they could not help her if she could not produce an ID document (which had been stolen). In her case a temporary ID would be accepted, provided she could also produce an affidavit from a third party regarding the robbery in which the original had been lost, as well as testimony affirming her identity.

Then she had to approach Home Affairs for an ID and passport.

She was informed that she had to pay R15 for a temporary ID plus R15 for the application for a re-issuing of the lost ID. To process the passport application, they needed R90 for a temporary passport (plus yet another third-party affidavit) plus R145 for a new passport plus R145 as penalty for having “lost” her passport.

How will she pay? She lost all her money in the robbery. To access her bank account, she needs a new bank card. To get a new bank card, she needs an ID for which she has to pay with the money she cannot get from the bank account before she can produce an ID!

She had to borrow the money to pay, amongst others, the official penalty for having been robbed.

Even after having obtained a temporary ID as the key to solve all the other problems, the drama continued. The bank was not happy with the printed quality of the official temporary ID document. After stringent questioning to verify that she was in fact who she claimed to be, regardless of what the official temporary document states, and even though various banking officials greeted her by name, her banking account was eventually reactivated – at the total cost of R90.

At last – some eight hours after the beginning of the drama - she had not only the photos but also the documentation and the finance to reopen the earlier unsuccessful application for the re-issuing of a driver’s licence. Unfortunately, by that time, the municipal offices were already closed.

So that seems to be yet another drama for another day...