/ 23 June 2011

Dept of home affairs upping its game, says DG

The time it takes to produce an identity document has been reduced from an average of 127 days to less than 45 days, the home affairs department said on Thursday.

This was due to the department’s turnaround strategy implemented in 2007, deputy DG Avril Williamson told reporters in Pretoria.

Producing an ID document had been cut from 80 to 15 production steps.

In addition many workers had to be “redeployed” or “re-skilled” for other areas within the department.

Williamson said by the end of 2008, 93% of customers polled said waiting times for IDs were faster than expected.

“Ninety-two percent said they were impressed with the new SMS notification. An efficient customer contact centre answers 95% of calls in 20 seconds and is resolving 90% of calls on first contact.”

The system that people could use to track the progress of an application through the production process had been extended to passports, birth, marriage and death certificates, citizenship applications and late birth registrations.

She, however, admitted her department was still not operating to its maximum capacity.

“We will take the model across the worst-performing offices,” she said. — Sapa