Home Affairs DDG promises action on 300,000 remaining blocked IDs

Home Affairs Deputy Director-General, Thomas Sigama, has promised protestors outside the department's head office in Pretoria that the process of lifting blocks on identity documents (IDs) will be expedited.

Sigama addressed the group, led by the civil movement Soil of Africa, on Monday afternoon. They were demonstrating over thousands of IDs they claim have been wrongfully blocked by the department.

The protest follows the department's blocking of at least 2 million IDs that were flagged for potential fraud.

Last month, Soil of Africa handed over a memorandum with a list of demands, which they claim were ignored, prompting them to take to the streets again today.

The issue of blocked IDs has been ongoing. In January of last year, after a legal challenge by human rights lawyers, the Pretoria High Court ruled that the department had failed to follow proper procedure when blocking the IDs.

The court then required the department to re-legitimise the blocked IDs and grant affected individuals an opportunity to make representations.

The departmentsaid the saga of the blocked IDs dates back to 2005 and is a result of errors made in the National Population Register.

In last year's court order, the department was given two years to resolve the matter. Deputy Director-General Sigama asserts that strides have been made.

"But today we are happy to inform you that we have already unblocked more than 2.1 million," Sigama stated to the protestors.

However, at least 300,000 people are still grappling with blocked IDs. Sigama promised that the department will begin working on resolving these remaining cases starting on Tuesday.