Bellville Home Affairs door closed to refugees

On 26 October, DHA circulated a notice that from 1 November the Bellville Office will no longer process refugee travel and identity document applications. All applications must now be done in person at the Annexure Office situated at Customs’ House, Foreshore, Cape Town. The Western Cape director and national spokesperson for the Somali Association of South Africa, Abdikadir Mohamed, said, “We had not been informed earlier; it is a short notice. We were informed through an email as an organization but we have to inform refugees about it. Bellville office was convenient for many refugees because it was nearby and it was not overcrowded, but Customs’ House is already full.”

Bernard Toyambi of PASSOP said, “There is no problem for moving the office to another location if needed. We just regret that DHA did not consult the stakeholders before making the decision. We only received a letter from them recently notifying us that the Bellville office will be closed and moved to Cape Town … There was no proper consultation between stakeholders and DHA.”

A refugee who did not wish to be named said, “The department should have informed us in time and advertised extensively since this affect lots of refugees … I am not happy with [the] Customs’ offices, because the offices are not organised. Maitland was much better for me, because there were various queues for assistance, such as extensions, lost [documents], asylum and new applicants. But at Customs’, we stand in one queue; adding IDs and travelling documents to that queue may cause chaos.

“There are problems already at Customs’ house, for instance last year in November there was a stampede. Security is always struggling with queue management,” she said.

“I think the department should seek volunteers from refugees to help them manage queues or assist other refugees to fill in application forms. When I applied at Barrack Street, my ID did not come out, so I re-applied in Bellville. I waited for three months to reapply because the office did not have application forms. When I finally applied, I helped a few refugees who could not fill the application form correctly. I feel that if these refugees would be assisted to fill in forms, the forms will be not misused.

“Another option would be to set up an online application system and ask other computer literate refugees to assist,” she suggested.

The Department of Home Affairs commented: ‘A communique was sent to all registered refugee organizations in the Western Cape including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) requesting that the information be as widely circulated as possible.’

‘The Bellville Office is not as centrally located as Customs House, which is situated in Cape Town city centre … The Bellville Office lease had expired and due to space constraints at the new building, it was necessary to relocate the identity and travel document team officials to Customs House.’

‘The Department is in the process of undertaking a number of initiatives that will improve the quality of service and turnaround times for travel documents. Stakeholders will be kept abreast of all developments in this regard.’