The Department of Home Affairs’ (DHA’s) much-awaited online appointment booking system went live this week, following a pilot phase in December.
However, only select home affairs offices (28) in seven provinces offer the service, according to the DHA website. The provinces are Gauteng, Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape, North West, Limpopo and Mpumalanga.
The Branch Appointment Booking System, or BABS, allows clients to make an electronic booking for selected services at DHA offices.
Speaking on 702’s breakfast show, Thulani Mavuso, deputy director-general (DDG) for institutional planning and support at the DHA, said the booking appointment system is limited to two products (services) – smart ID cards and passports – at the moment.
This is mainly because of the high demand for these two services. “We cannot schedule an appointment for death registration because those are natural occurrences. But when it comes to these two products, we believe we can be able to book for them.”
The DDG explained the system is linked to the national population register; therefore, the client must supply details, such as ID number and names, in the manner in which they appear in the ID book when making a booking.
“The system verifies against the population register. We were trying to avoid a situation where we have an emergence of agents that are now going to take those slots and then resell them to people, because we have seen that happen before.
The DHA first mentioned plans for the online booking appointment system last year, while briefing Parliament’s home affairs portfolio committee about interventions on the war on queues.
At the time, director-general Livhuwani Tommy Makhode told the committee the appointment system is akin to the one clients use to make bookings for passports and smart ID cards with their respective banks.
BABS has been introduced as one of the strategies in the home affairs ministry’s fight against snaking queues and the illegal practice of blocking slots in queues to resell to members of the public.
The DHA notes the system won't be open to abuse. “At the office, the office manager and supervisors will ensure the queues are monitored closely so that all clients are served and treated fairly.”
The department, according to Mavuso, is currently running a hybrid model, with separate queues for pre-booked clients and walk-ins.
The department encourages citizens to make use of the online booking system, saying in the near future, selected home affairs will process smart ID and passport applications only for clients who have booked an appointment via BABS.
“We’re not going to turn anybody back at this point in time, but we just want South Africans to move to that particular mode of booking online should they require a passport or smart ID,” states Mavuso.
BABS is being rolled out to all the live offices, and by the end of June, 43 offices will have the booking system. “We’ll continue rollout from 1 July onwards.”
Home affairs offices that offer BABS:
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