An East London home affairs security guard whose conduct irritated the department’s deputy minister Njabulo Nzuza on Wednesday has been removed from the offices’ public area to a parking lot in the basement.
This is while disciplinary processes are likely to be instituted by the security company contracted by the department.
Nzuza was on a surprise visit to the offices of home affairs in the city when the security guard simply walked away from him while he was inquiring about her attitude towards people.
Even when Nzuza’s official tried reasoning with her to have a word with the deputy minister, she did not listen and instead told the official that she was busy.
Home affairs’ provincial manager Gcinile Mabulu said their East London branch has had instability due to not having a permanent office manager.
“Due to the instability of not having a formal office manager and depending on an acting one, the office was still operating with an old circular imperative,” Mabulu said.
“However, starting today [Thursday] all clients will be assisted as per the new circular of 2021.”
He was referring to an issue raised by Nzuza of people who had given birth outside East London who were being turned away by the officials.
Nzuza told the officials that they were supposed to serve people who wanted to apply for birth certificates irrespective of where they had given birth.
Of the conduct of the security guard, Mabulu said: “In the interim, while the office waits on the report from the security company, already this morning [Thursday] the security guard has been moved from the public area, and placed in the parking lot in the offices’ basement.”
Nzuza, who queued with people before the opening on Wednesday morning, had instructed one of his officials to inquire whether they were in the right queue and to ask about the opening time, to which the guard in question responded: “What do you want?”
The official replied he was there to inquire about his ID. The security guard pointed the official to a queue for ID enquiries.
The official asked about the details of another queue, which was right in front of the entrance and the guard said: “I said go to the ID queue.”
On Nzuza’s concerns of certain people skipping queues ahead of others, Mabulu said: “There was an oversight on the part of the office, as sometimes clients will be referred by pastors to come for online verification, before the marriage is conducted.
“However, the office will monitor queues to avoid such incidents.”
On people’s complaints that they were being turned back when the system was offline, Mabulu said: “Clients are being addressed at all times and, sometimes, the supervisor will be accompanied by the IT technician to explain to clients the extent of the problem technically.”
But Themba Nazo, whose ID got damaged about a year ago, told the Dispatch he had been trying to fix the issue for several months without getting help.
“I would come here and be told the system is offline or, at other times, the queue would be too long for me to get help,” Nazo said.
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