Hon Chair, the department together with the Department of International Relations and Co-operation has formed a task team, to currently review the process to drastically reduce the extended waiting period for documents such as IDs and passports. I am sure this answer or statement might confuse people because our set standard of IDs and passports is 13 days. Now, this question is about foreign missions and true, it is not 13 days in our foreign missions, it takes a longer time. The 13 days applies to those who apply here at home. When you are abroad, it can be anything up to six months, unfortunately. So, that is what we are trying to solve.
The department has co-dependency on the Department of International Relations and Co-operation, unfortunately. Once people apply, for instance, if they are in the UK, to bring the documents home; they must come via a diplomatic bag. It is not us at Home Affairs who determines how often the diplomatic bag must come to the country; it is the ambassadors and the Department of International Relations and Co-operation. That is why we have formed a task team with them for them to realise ... it might be that the Department of International Relations and Co-operation has no reason to send the diplomatic bag to South Africa for six months and then we are forced to wait for
that time. Now, we are trying to sensitise them if there is any way possible.
The application for passport and ID abroad is a manual process, unfortunately and not automated. It entails the verification of citizenry, which is separately managed. Our discussion with them is that we need to resolve that.
The task team will work on the reduction of turnaround in the receipt of the diplomatic bags, the efficient dispatch of bags from the Department of International Relations and Co-operation to the department, processing of product application and dispatch of finalised products.
In order to address the situation, both Ministers have established a task team as I have already said, and we are trying to make sure that our consular services are actually being improved. Thank you.