The Minister of Home Affairs, Mrs Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, embarked on a door-to-door delivery of IDs to the communities within the Greater Giyani Municipality last Friday.

Nqakula, who was accompanied by the chief executive officer of the South African Post Office, Mr Khutso Mampeule, had visited Giyani for four reasons - to listen to the grievances of the community members about the rendering of services within her department and in other government departments, to open a new office, so that people in and around Giyani can access services conveniently, to unveil the new better and bigger mobile units and to pledge her department's cooperation with the post office with regard to the delivering of IDs straight to the homes of the applicants.

The minister claimed that she had taken a decision that nobody would ever walk long distances and wait for long periods before they can apply for their enabling documents, particularly people in the deep rural areas who are forced to spend more money on transport to the Home Affairs offices. “In the recent past, people used to apply for enabling documents at the magistrate’s offices, and when a decision on competencies was taken to separate these services from the magistrate’s office, we were faced with a consequence of shortages or adequate space for Home Affairs,” she said.

Nqakula further added that the department had completed an audit of all the infrastructure and office needs. The results of the study will be used to roll out Home Affairs offices with officials who will serve the communities politely and caringly. When opening the new office, Nqakula said the office is fully computerised. “We are aware that our programme of building new offices might not cover every corner of our country in the short term, but in the meantime, the mobile units will help us in ensuring that we reach as many people as we can in areas that still do not have offices,” she said.

Although the mobile units had some teething problems in the beginning, the Minister said that her assessment revealed that mobile units have made a big difference in taking services where they could not reach before.