A national embargo has been placed on the issuing of routine passports as no new passport blanks are available for processing, the Witness reported on Friday.
Its website quoted immigration lawyer Attie Tredoux as saying: ”This is shocking and a national crisis.”
Tredoux, a former senior Department of Home Affairs official, said it is the first time in the country’s history that the department simply has no passport blanks available.
He said the handful of new passports still held by the department have now been reserved for ”emergency cases”.
They can only be issued to individuals ”who can provide a very good motivation for consideration”.
Even then, only 30 passports are allowed to be issued per regional office in South Africa. This meant a maximum of 1 600 passports can be issued countrywide compared with the usual maximum capacity of 60 000 per day.
Department of Home Affairs spokesperson Noksana Sibuyi said the problem ”is receiving priority attention of officials at the highest level”.
”We are working full steam to solve the problem as urgently as possible, but in the meantime passports will only be issued on a priority basis.”
Sibuyi could not say why printing shortages developed.
”We are [at present] trying to establish the reason why this came about,” he said.
The Democratic Alliance on Friday called on Minister of Home Affairs Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula and her deputy to resign.
”With the possible exception of the Department of Health, the Department of Home Affairs is the worst-run administration in the national government. Today’s revelation, that the department is unable to produce passports because it has run out of paper, is only the latest debacle among a litany of shortcomings and examples of maladministration”, said DA spokesperson Sandy Kalyan.
Kalyan cited fraud, unacceptable treatment of refugees, poor staff management, financial disarray, failures in the administration of skilled immigration, and unacceptable levels of service provided to ordinary members of the public as problem areas within the department. — Sapa