Phone lines have been cut at East Rand offices of the Department of Home Affairs — allegedly due to unpaid phone bills, a home affairs official said on Monday.
Regional home affairs manager for Springs Themba Ndebele said the lines had been out of order since last week.
”This is crisis point,” said Ndebele. ”We can’t function.”
He said no one could phone out, receive calls or fax at home affairs offices in Nigel, Brakpan, Benoni and Springs.
Ndebele said while he was trying to work using his official cellphone, the offices, although open, could not do much.
He said he had spoken to head office about the matter once last week and once on Monday morning.
Ndebele said he had been told they were attending to the matter, but he had not been satisfied with their response.
Home affairs spokesperson Jacky Mashapu, when contacted for the first time by the South African Press Association (Sapa), said he was not aware of ”such a thing” happening at the East Rand offices.
”If there was such a crisis, we would have known at head office.”
When contacted a second time by Sapa, Mashapu said: ”As far as I’m aware, I’ve spoken to that person in charge of the account and he said they [the phones] are functional. So as far as I’m aware, the phones are working.”
On Monday, Democratic Alliance (DA) home affairs spokesperson Mark Lowe said sources at the East Rand offices had said the overdue phone accounts were rumoured to run into hundreds of thousands of rands.
”However, they were unable to confirm this, as the responsibility to pay the accounts lay with the national department.”
Lowe said he would be writing to Director General of Home Affairs Mavuso Msimang to request that the situation was addressed urgently and to ask questions as to why the situation came about in the first place. — Sapa