Big win for getting your ID in South Africa

The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) has cleared the backlog of 247,500 ID applications that had accumulated since November 2023, eliminating a bottleneck that slowed the production of the documents.

Minister Leon Schreiber said the backlog was cleared within the space of one month. It had slowed the production value chain from the office of application to application authentication to printing and the final issuing of IDs.

“As part of the Department’s commitment to clearing backlogs and enhancing efficiency, on 21 August 2024, Home Affairs consolidated all of the ‘stuck’ IDs into a single database in order to systematically clear the backlog,” said Schreiber.

“On that day, there were 247,500 IDs in the backlog.”

He added that the department had now completely eradicated the backlog.

The minister said the clearing of the ID backlog within a month provided evidence that longstanding problems within the department can be resolved systematically.

“The clearing of this specific backlog also signifies our commitment to turn Home Affairs into a powerful economic enabler, as the individuals affected by the backlog can now seek employment, open accounts, and gain access to social grants,” he added.

Schreiber says the department has taken its first steps towards digital transformation. However, according to the minister, there is still much more to do.

“Our apex priority is the wholesale digital transformation of Home Affairs to create a new system where South Africans should be able to submit ID and other applications from the comfort of their own home through a digital platform, followed by the delivery of these documents to their doorstep,” he said.

“We call this vision ‘Home Affairs @ home’, and we are committed to realising it with the same systematic approach that enabled us to clear the ID backlog.”

The minister revealed his plans to digitise Home Affairs services in August 2024, adding that this would help fight fraudsters creating fake documents.

“It is only possible for someone to steal an ID number or engage in fraudulent activity like swopping out photos because the system has gaps that allow for human intervention,” the minister said.

“Until such time as Home Affairs has been transformed into a digital-first department, these abuses will keep happening and ‘the system will remain offline.'”

“Instances like these — and potentially much worse — will keep happening for as long as Home Affairs processes are manual, paper-based, and vulnerable to human discretion,” he added.

The DHA has plans to invalidate the country’s green ID booklets in the near future, once the country’s residents hold smart ID cards.

However, despite DHA deputy director-general Thulani Mavuso saying the department hopes to phase out the old IDs within two to three years, it will likely take much longer.

His timeline estimate came after former Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi caused panic in June 2024 when he told reporters that the green ID book would soon be declared invalid.

Deputy Minister Njabula Nzuza said the department must reach 38 million smart ID cards before it can invalidate green barcoded ID booklets.

This is the same number of booklets that were in circulation in 2013 when the smart ID card was launched.

The DHA previously anticipated the transition to smart ID cards to take six to eight years, which means it would have needed to produce 4.75 million smart IDs each year, a target it has consistently missed.

Home Affairs reported producing 2.6 million cards in the 2022/23 financial year and 2.8 million in 2023/24. It plans to make a further 2.5 million cards in 2024/25.

The 38-million target also doesn’t take into account new ID books issued in the past 11 years.