Minister sets up Home Affairs hotline for public

By Khanyisa Tabata
31 August 2009

Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini -Zuma has set up a hotline number in her office to allow the public to direct complaints to her.

The hotline number will be used to enable the minister to unlock any problems that members of the public may experience with other sections of the department Department of Home Affairs.

However, the hotline number will not replace the normal call centre number of the department, 0800-6011-90, which will continue to deal with ongoing concerns of the public.

The hotline comes after a 22 year old man from KwaZulu-Natal committed suicide shortly after he was allegedly refused an urgent ID application, and had papers torn up by a Pinetown Home Affairs’ officials.

According to the department, the man was applying for an urgent documentation so he could start a new job on Monday but department officials refused to help him because they suspected him of being a foreign national.

He later committed suicide on Friday night.

After incident Zuma-Dlamini has sent senior departmental delegation to visit the Home Affairs offices in Pinetown to investigate circumstances around Skhumbuzo Mhlongo.

The delegation led by Acting Deputy Director-General Vusi Mkhize and senior officials from the province will visit the regional office to determine the identity of the official who handled the application for an ID by the deceased.

After the investigation, the delegation will recommend the course of action to be taken to remedy the situation.

The hotline number: 0800-2044-76 will be operational every day of the week and has voice recording facilities for members of the public to leave voice messages.