Woman Can’t Get ID From Home Affairs Because She Has Been Proclaimed Dead. A woman at KwaZulu-Natal couldn’t get an identity document for 12 years.
A woman at KwaZulu-Natal couldn’t get an identity document for 12 years. Noluvo Mathumbu was proclaimed dead in 2007 by Home Affairs. The woman, who is a mother of four children, states that she went to apply for a new identity document at the Bizana Home Affairs in the Eastern Cape in 2007. That’s after her identity document taken away from her during a robbery, she found out that she was proclaimed dead.
She asked the person that she was working for if she could go back to the Eastern Cape so that she could apply for an identity document. Noluvo Mathumbu says, “When the robbery happened, I had just arrived in KwaZulu-Natal. I asked my employer to allow me to go back home in the Eastern Cape to apply for an ID. It was only then I discovered that according to the home affairs system I had died a few weeks earlier, and the mortuary that handled my death was in Scottburgh, in the south of KwaZulu-Natal.” The authorities told her that she needs re-apply for the status of her life, to re-assure that she is alive.
She was then told that she should come back after two years to check if her life status application has succeeded. When she came back after two years she was told to keep on waiting because the head office in Pretoria was still examining the case. She adds that she has been going to and fro from Durban to Bizana to check on the status but the authorities made her to keep on waiting. Noluvu Mathumbu says, “Twelve years later I am still waiting. I used to go check every six months but the officials kept telling me to be patient. I stopped checking about a year ago because I was losing the little money that I worked for on travel costs.”
She says that it was hard for her to find jobs after she has been fired by her employer, she couldn’t find jobs because she didn’t have an identity document and they found it hard to believe what she said about her identity document story. She says she is not able to apply for a grant for her children because she doesn’t have an identity document.
by Alexandra Ramaite
