The Department of Home Affairs said on Friday it has never placed any embargo on the issuing of passports and has not run out of paper for passports.
It was reacting to news reports on Friday saying that no new passport blanks were available for processing.
The Witness 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 was the first time in the country’s history that the department had run out of passport blanks.
The department said in reaction on Friday evening that ”the claim that there is a crisis in the issuing of passports cannot be sustained”.
”Accordingly, we have been [printing] and continue to print passports as expected in order to afford South Africans an opportunity to travel to other countries.”
In addition, the department will on Tuesday receive a consignment of 300 000 end papers for the printing of passports.
Another consignment of 600 000 will be delivered to the department in June.
”It is our firm belief that this consignment will further assist us to produce passports and provide them to their rightful owners.”
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. — Sapa