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YOU CAN NOW GET IDS, OTHERS ON WEEKENDS

09/03/2021 10:22:00 Phumelele Mkhonta

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MBABANE – The Ministry of Home Affairs has kept its promise!

Three months after promising to open their regional offices on weekends due to the backlog in enrolment of national identity cards, the said ministry is finally doing just that. According to a press statement sent by the ministry’s Principal Secretary, Nhlanhla Nxumalo, yesterday, in response to the seven- month backlog caused by COVID-19 negative effects on service delivery countrywide, the ministry had decided that they would open service centres on Saturdays and Sundays. This activity will begin this coming weekend and will last for three weeks.
This means it will start on March 13 and end on March 28.

Worth noting is that the enrolment of national identification cards will still continue on Tuesdays and Thursdays. “All 10 service centres will open on the following weekends (Saturdays and Sundays) to enrol for both late and current national identity documents,” said Nxumalo. He further said the requirements for national identity document enrolment was an original and certified copy of the birth certificate and if lost, it would require a police report. “Another requirement is a E25 receipt for current enrolment and E50 receipt for second ID enrolment. For payments, emaSwati are advised to use government Revenue Offices nearest to their service centres, which will also be operational,” said the PS. Nxumalo said for enquiries, emaSwati were encouraged to contact +268 7606 3938.

In November last year, Nxumalo said they were planning on opening on weekends to try deal with the seven months backlog of IDs. The Ministry of Home Affairs service centres were closed during the emergence of COVID-19 last year from March to October. Nxumalo highlighted that they were still going to consider the ministry’s financial standing and human resource to be able to start working on weekends. He also said it was imperative to understand that, generally, home affairs services were always in demand worldwide. “Operations at the ministry, just like in all sectors of the economy, were impeded by the outbreak of COVID-19 in March (last year). Civil servants at working stations were reduced by 50 per cent. “In response to this, we suspended issuance of IDs as the enrolment process involves high risk personal contact with clients. Passports were only issued at the head office for those who needed to travel on essential errands,” said Nxumalo at the time. He said worth noting was that the registration of births, deaths and marriage certificates was never suspended.

“The suspension of some of the services created a backlog of IDs and other official documents of about seven months,” said Nxumalo. About two weeks ago, it was reported that some people were spending nights at the District Commissioner’s Office with the hope to be first in line to get their identity documents.