NATIONAL COUNCIL OF PROVINCES
FOR WRITTEN REPLY
QUESTION 36
DATE OF PUBLICATION: Friday, 07 March 2014
INTERNAL QUESTION PAPER NO 6 of 2014
Mrs B L Abrahams (DA-Gauteng) to ask the Minister of Home Affairs:
(a) How many persons (i) over the age of 60 years have (aa) applied for and
(bb) received Smart Identity Document (ID) Cards and (ii) under the age of
18 years have applied for Smart ID Cards, (b) where are all the offices
that have the capabilities to issue Smart ID Cards located and (c) how long
does it take for an application to be processed from the beginning to the
date of issuance of a Smart ID Card?
CW76E
REPLY:
a) The information as at 07 March 2014 is as follows:
(a)(i)(aa) 76Â 981 persons 60 years and above applied for Smart ID cards;
(a)(i)(bb) 38Â 849 persons 60 years and above received Smart ID cards;
(a)(ii)(aa) 10 988 first time ID applicants have been processed for Smart
ID cards (the majority of the first time applicants are between 16
and 18 years of age).
(a)(ii)(bb) 1Â 455 Smart ID Cards have already been collected by first time
ID applicants, 1Â 360 are ready to be collected in various Home
Affairs front offices and 8 173 are being processed in various
stages within the Department.
b) There are currently 30 offices across the country with the
capability to issue Smart ID cards. The offices in the 9 provinces
are in the table hereunder:
|Province |Office Location |
|Western Cape |GEORGE |
| |CAPE TOWN |
| |WYNBERG |
|Gauteng |JOHANNESBURG |
| |PRETORIA |
| |SOWETO |
| |AKASIA |
|Free State |WELKOM |
| |KROONSTAD |
| |BLOEMFONTEIN |
|Limpopo |POLOKWANE-PIETERSBURG |
| |JANE FURSE |
| |TZANEEN |
| |GIYANI |
| |THOHOYANDOU |
|Mpumalanga |NELSPRUIT |
| |WITBANK |
| |MIDDELBURG |
|Northern Cape |KIMBERLEY |
| |UPINGTON |
| |KURUMAN |
|Eastern Cape |BISHO-KING WILLIAMS TOWN |
| |PORT ELIZABETH |
| |UMTATA |
|North West |KLERKSDORP |
| |RUSTENBURG |
| |POTCHEFSTROOM |
|Kwa-Zulu Natal |DURBAN |
| |PIETERMARITZBURG |
| |MTUBATUBA |
(c) The average turnaround time to process a smart ID card from the
beginning to end is about 5 to 10 working days. However, there are
exceptional cases where a further step of verification is undertaken
which may impact on the turnaround time. For example, if an applicant
is a first time ID applicant the turnaround time can take up to 14 -
20 days on average due to a process involved to verify the birth
records and to record the fingerprints of the citizen. If an
applicant is already on the Department records, but the quality of
his/ her fingerprints has deteriorated since the last time their
fingerprints were recorded, the process can take an average of 10 -
15 days.
