Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba on Tuesday launched the Moetepele (Leadership) initiative, which aims to ensure a consistently high quality of customer experience at Home Affairs offices through the establishment of model offices.  The initiative was launched at the Edenvale Home Affairs offices.

The initiative is the department’s leadership programmme aimed at improving the way officials work and deliver services to the public.

The Edenvale office was selected owing to recent public complaints about the lack of service  delivery, amongst other things.

The Minister said the project would later be replicated in other offices in the country as well as overseas. 

“Gone are the days when people stand in long queues at Home Affairs offices, only to be turned away when they don’t have all the necessary documents. These newly built offices are designed to improve workflow and help lift staff morale,” he said.

The Edenvale Home Affairs office had been revamped to demonstrate a fully digitised, paperless environment. Part of this included piloting a payment system that would allow clients to pay for Home Affairs services with debit and credit cards, which would be rolled out to all 140 smart ID card issuing offices by March 2016.

Gigaba also noted that the public would be able to access Home Affairs online and apply for identity documents and passports via the Web and pay using credit or debit cards. People could later receive their documents from their banks without needing to visit Home Affairs offices at all. 

“We are also bringing the services at the banks to Home Affairs offices. All Home Affairs offices will all have credit and debit card facilities so no one will be turned away if they don’t have enough cash,” he pointed out.

The Department would also add an additional 38 offices to assist with smart ID card applications, since not all offices currently offered this service.   

Gigaba also signed a service charter pledge with his Deputy Fatima Chohan as part of their commitment to always strive for excellence within the department.