[ad_1]
The South African passport. (Photo Joyrene Kramer)
South Africans who are stranded abroad without a passport can apply for an emergency document that allows them to travel home, Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said on Friday. The only downside: many embassies and high commissions remain closed.
“The issue of passports abroad is a bit complex,” Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said at a briefing on Level 2 lockdown regulations on Friday.
NEAR
“South Africans who are abroad and need to return to South Africa can apply for emergency passports.”
While international travel is still restricted during the coronavirus pandemic, South African citizens can apply to the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) to be considered for repatriation.
Citizens who need to replace their passports to return can apply for one-way emergency passports at South African foreign missions. However, many of those missions remain closed.
“Right now, one of the problems they are experiencing is that the embassies are closed,” Motsoaledi said.
“If a Dirco office is closed, Internal Affairs officials cannot work.”
The minister said that citizens can call emergency contact lines on missions abroad to request emergency passports. But according to a recent statement by DA deputy Adriaan Roos and DA Abroad’s Rory Jubber, many attempts to contact officials on foreign missions have gone unanswered.
“The largest Internal Affairs office outside of South Africa, in London, remains closed while the rest of London is rushing back,” they said.
“Applicants are asked to email requests and these emails either receive a response out of the office falsely claiming that the High Commission is closed, or remain largely unanswered. Telephone calls have not yet been answered, applicants who go to the office to claim urgency do not find queues or customers who are being served.
DA members asked Motsoaledi to facilitate passport extensions for citizens abroad whose passports have expired during the shutdown. The minister said such a move would encourage fraud.
More than 19,400 South Africans have been repatriated during the Covid-19 crisis, according to Dirco’s latest repatriation bulletin, published on August 17, 2020. Motsoaledi said the government only offered financial assistance to repatriated students from Wuhan in March.
“There is no amount of resources that we can give to South Africans who are abroad to return home,” he said.
“We do not offer them any financial aid. It has not been possible and we have never promised it ”.
The Internal Affairs offices in South Africa will offer additional services under Level 2 of the blockade, including applications for the first issue of identity cards, applications for identity cards from people who received temporary documents during the blockade. The expiration date of temporary identity documents issued during the closure has been extended to October 31, 2020.
Internal Affairs continues to allow people to register marriages, births and deaths, collect identity documents and request the modification of their personal data.
Vice Minister of Internal Affairs Njabulo Nzuza said the department continues to work with the Department of Basic Education to help students obtain identity documents. According to the basic education department, almost 640,000 students do not have identification.
Since June, Home Affairs mobile units have been visiting communities to help students.
“This year has really been a very unusual year. It is important that students spend as much time in schools than anywhere else because they will know the fact that there was Covid-19 that disrupted the academic program, ”said Nzuza.
“Now, we can no longer allow students to queue up to our offices during school hours.” DM
Feedback: share your knowledge and experience
Please note that you must be a Maverick Insider to comment. Register here or if you are already an Insider.
