In DA-style, Minister of Home Affairs, Dr Leon Schreiber, has announced yet another elitist vanity project, the so-called “Home Affairs At Home” campaign, which will allow South Africans living abroad to have their passports delivered to their doorstep.
While the DA Minister boasts about this so-called “innovation,” millions of South Africans within our borders continue to face daily humiliation at dysfunctional Home Affairs offices waiting in endless queues, enduring system crashes and begging for basic services that are their constitutional right.
It is both tone-deaf and offensive that Minister Schreiber finds money to courier passports to London, Dubai or Sydney, while grandmothers in Mthatha, Alexandra and learners in Diepsloot cannot access an ID to collect their social grants or write their matric exams and apply to study at tertiary institutions.
ActionSA will submit a written question to the Minister for full disclosure of what this overseas delivery scheme will cost the taxpayer? Who will foot the bill for these courier services and logistical arrangements? Early estimates suggest this initiative could run into millions of rands annually, funds that could have been used to modernise and better staff our collapsing local home affairs offices.
The truth emerging is that the Department of Home Affairs has become a tale of two South Africa’s, one for the privileged few living abroad and another for the forgotten majority at home. Minister Schreiber must explain why convenience for the diaspora takes precedence over dignity for citizens here.
Modernisation without accessibility is not progress. It is propaganda! We are therefore calling on the Minister to reconsider this PR exercise until all the frustrating lived realities experienced by South Africans are resolved first, charity after all begins at home. South Africans do not need courier services to foreign addresses but need functional home affairs systems, shorter queues and public servants who care.
It is unconscionable that South Africans must queue for days while those living abroad enjoy VIP courier services at taxpayers’ expense. South Africans deserve working systems before luxury innovations abroad.
Until the Department can deliver dignity to citizens at home, it has no business pretending to deliver efficiency abroad.
Unlike the GNU’s DA who consistently governs for the few, ActionSA believes in building a South Africa that serves and services all its people, especially the poor, the unemployed, and those abandoned by the State.
Our Citizens First approach demands that government modernisation must begin in Soweto, Gugulethu, Mthatha and Musina before it extends to the streets of London or Dubai. For ActionSA, efficiency must be felt at home, not advertised abroad.
Luxury for the Diaspora, Misery for the Masses: Home Affairs’ Misplaced Priorities Exposed
In DA-style, Minister of Home Affairs, Dr Leon Schreiber, has announced yet another elitist vanity project, the so-called “Home Affairs At Home” campaign, which will allow South Africans living abroad to have their passports delivered to their doorstep.
While the DA Minister boasts about this so-called “innovation,” millions of South Africans within our borders continue to face daily humiliation at dysfunctional Home Affairs offices waiting in endless queues, enduring system crashes and begging for basic services that are their constitutional right.
It is both tone-deaf and offensive that Minister Schreiber finds money to courier passports to London, Dubai or Sydney, while grandmothers in Mthatha, Alexandra and learners in Diepsloot cannot access an ID to collect their social grants or write their matric exams and apply to study at tertiary institutions.
ActionSA will submit a written question to the Minister for full disclosure of what this overseas delivery scheme will cost the taxpayer? Who will foot the bill for these courier services and logistical arrangements? Early estimates suggest this initiative could run into millions of rands annually, funds that could have been used to modernise and better staff our collapsing local home affairs offices.
The truth emerging is that the Department of Home Affairs has become a tale of two South Africa’s, one for the privileged few living abroad and another for the forgotten majority at home. Minister Schreiber must explain why convenience for the diaspora takes precedence over dignity for citizens here.
Modernisation without accessibility is not progress. It is propaganda! We are therefore calling on the Minister to reconsider this PR exercise until all the frustrating lived realities experienced by South Africans are resolved first, charity after all begins at home. South Africans do not need courier services to foreign addresses but need functional home affairs systems, shorter queues and public servants who care.
It is unconscionable that South Africans must queue for days while those living abroad enjoy VIP courier services at taxpayers’ expense. South Africans deserve working systems before luxury innovations abroad.
Until the Department can deliver dignity to citizens at home, it has no business pretending to deliver efficiency abroad.
Unlike the GNU’s DA who consistently governs for the few, ActionSA believes in building a South Africa that serves and services all its people, especially the poor, the unemployed, and those abandoned by the State.
Our Citizens First approach demands that government modernisation must begin in Soweto, Gugulethu, Mthatha and Musina before it extends to the streets of London or Dubai. For ActionSA, efficiency must be felt at home, not advertised abroad.