{"id":709022,"date":"2023-08-04T07:47:23","date_gmt":"2023-08-04T05:47:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=709022"},"modified":"2023-08-04T07:47:23","modified_gmt":"2023-08-04T05:47:23","slug":"good-news-for-smart-ids-and-passports-in-south-africa-just-dont-wait","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/709022\/good-news-for-smart-ids-and-passports-in-south-africa-just-dont-wait\/","title":{"rendered":"Good news for smart IDs and passports in South Africa &#8211; just don&#8217;t wait"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Home Affairs is opening seven offices on Saturday, 5 August 2023, which will provide services to people who can&#8217;t visit a branch on weekdays. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The offices will be open from 08h00 to 13h00, allowing for the collection of smart ID cards and passports services. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The following seven offices will be open tomorrow for collection: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Home Affairs Menlyn (Menlyn Park Shopping Centre, Pretoria, Gauteng)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Soweto: Orlando Branch (11902 Kumalo Main Rd &amp; Armitage St, Orlando West, Soweto, Gauteng)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Germiston Office (President Street &amp; FH Odendaal Street, Germiston, Gauteng)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Atamelang District Office (1093b Main Street, Golf View, Mafikeng, North West)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Zeerust Office (48B Church Street, Zeerust, North West)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>De Aar Office (47 Voortrekker St, De Aar, Northern Cape)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Colesburg Office (Corner Chamberlain &amp; Church Street, Thusong Centre, Colesberg, Northern Cape)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;We encourage clients to take advantage of the extended hours on Saturdays to collect documents they have applied for and not wait for the last minute,&#8221; the department said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;It remains a great concern that over 500,000 smart ID cards are still to be collected in Home Affairs offices across the country.&#8221; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Easier process <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The department has recently launched several initiatives that make applying for and collecting smart ID cards and passports easier. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Home Affairs minister Aaron Motsoaledi recently approved a temporary extension of operating hours at from offices by two hours from 08h00 to 17h30. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The extension applies to nearly 200 modernised Live Capture offices that process smart ID cards and passports and started on 27 July 2023. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe department usually receives a higher volume of applications during school holidays. To meet the demand during this period, we have extended operating hours,\u201d Motsoaledi said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In addition, the department said that it is interested in expanding its services to more bank branches across the country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are 27 bank branches where South African-born citizens can renew their passports or smart IDs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The pilot programme will be in effect until September 2023, despite being initially scheduled to end in July 2022. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A breakdown of which banks provide smart ID and passport services is below: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Standard Bank&nbsp;<\/strong>\u2014 9<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>FNB&nbsp;<\/strong>\u2014 7<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Nedbank&nbsp;<\/strong>\u2014 5<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Absa&nbsp;<\/strong>\u2014 4<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Discovery Bank&nbsp;<\/strong>\u2014 1<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Investec\u00a0<\/strong>\u2014 1<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-businesstech wp-block-embed-businesstech\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"YqegLa4YYl\"><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/685073\/all-the-bank-branches-where-you-can-get-your-smart-id-and-passport\/\">All the bank branches where you can get your Smart ID and passport<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;All the bank branches where you can get your Smart ID and passport&#8221; &#8212; BusinessTech\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/685073\/all-the-bank-branches-where-you-can-get-your-smart-id-and-passport\/embed\/#?secret=YOKpD6BtVg#?secret=YqegLa4YYl\" data-secret=\"YqegLa4YYl\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Read<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wealth\/708954\/south-africa-is-bleeding-millionaires-2\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">South Africa is bleeding millionaires<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Home Affairs is trying to encourage South Africans to collect their smart IDs and passports, with 500,000 documents waiting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":648563,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,9876],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-709022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","category-lifestyle","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=709022"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":709034,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709022\/revisions\/709034"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/648563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=709022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=709022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=709022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}