Imagine your passport is South African & you live outside SA. Then suddenly, you wait for 6 months or more to have the application process to be finalised. Same with SA ID (identity document/ID book). 🇿🇦
That have happened to me on my personal experience.
As I am half South African (born to South African mother in the UK), I completed two applications in 2019 at the SA High Commission (Embassy). The renewal of my SA passport (which was expired in 2010) and my application of South African identity document. For my passport application, it took 7 long months and 223 days (more than 6 months when I collected my first adult SA passport at the High Commission in November 2019). My application of SA ID book, it took 25 months ago (2 years & 1 month) & I collected it last week at the High Commission in Trafalgar Square (Charing Cross), London.
I can understand the delay was affected due to the coronavirus pandemic that affected every single country in the world (which was reasonable and for that, I understand). However, it is not reasonable when the duration of waiting for South African passport & identity document is very long and that SA passport holders who are living outside South Africa, are waiting for 6 months or more for the application to be done in Pretoria. Not in South African diplomatic missions (High Commissions/Embassies/Consulates).
Passport application along identity document in terms of duration is mostly done with week or two weeks (14 days) at the SA Home Affairs Branch in South Africa (now there is a ID card there. Smart ID card) & yet, outside SA, it is 6 months & more. That’s unfair, unbearable and frustrating. No wonder there has to be a fast track option instead of waiting for 6 months. Waiting for the passport that is not in top ten of the world’s most powerful passport & that is weak.
To be honest, before I went to collect my SA ID at South Africa House (High Commission), I was almost close to emailing staff member who work at the High Commission to discontinue my application of ID book as I was fed up with the long length of it. I am patient man who likes to wait for some things but not very long. 25 months of waiting hence my frustration. Can you imagine that?
How can the Home Affairs (government department in South Africa) allowed this & normalise very long duration of applications for passport & identity documents for SA passport holders who are not living in South Africa? SA passport waiting duration is awful. Unacceptably & unbelievably awful.
God forbid if that were to happen to British passport holder who happens to be residing in France to be told that he/she would wait to collect UK passport for 6 months or a year at the embassy or Irish passport holder who happens to be residing in the United States & waits for 6 months or a year to collect his/her passport at the embassy. This is an example in hypothetical situations. 🇬🇧🇮🇪🇫🇷🇺🇸
Plus in August 2019, when I went to the Nigerian High Commission with my father who is originally from Nigeria, my application of my first Nigerian passport was smoothly done within two weeks and that my dad went back to the High Commission as I was away on my short holiday to France. Nigerian passport application used to take much long until in the recent years, Nigerian diplomatic missions have improved it & having it done in 14 days in terms of Nigerian passport application & other application instead of waiting for it forever. 🇳🇬
Hopefully one day, there’ll be fast track option to speed up SA passport application instead of waiting for 6 months or more when outside South Africa. Hopefully that can have a tracking reference number to see how the application is processing.
Sources:
For too long, it had happened to many South African passport holders outside South Africa regarding the application of ppt & ID. I say enough is enough with the long long duration of SA PPT application & ID application for South Africans who are living outside SA. Let this be a message for the South African Home Affairs.
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