Home Affairs Deputy Minister, Njabulo Nzuza, will today visit KwaZulu-Natal to extend a helping hand to people who were affected by the recent devastating floods in the province.

Together with the leadership of eThekwini Municipality, the Deputy Minister is expected to visit two emergency relief sites set up by the municipality to activate Home Affairs' enhanced emergency services. The department said part of the devastation that the people experienced is the loss of enabling documents.

In a statement, Home Affairs said it is ready to assist with the replacement of documents – at no cost to the communities.

“[We] will be replacing birth certificates and IDs of people affected by the disaster and also issue out temporary identity certificates.

“People will be allowed to apply for and collect documents from mobile trucks. This service is available only to people who have lost their documents during the disaster. Any person who lost their documents at another time will not be covered by this intervention.”

The department is working with the eThekwini Municipality and the district municipalities of Ilembe, Ugu, and Umgungundlovu to identify the people who need assistance.

Local councillors are expected to verify the names of people supplied to the Disaster Management Operations Centre, and after approvals, the lists are forwarded to Home Affairs for processing. Services to some of these communities commenced on Thursday.

Only Chatsworth Home Affairs is not currently operational due to flooding, and a mobile unit was deployed there to offer services.

“As people’s needs are continuously being established through various interventions, resources are being deployed, including dispatching mobile offices to help in receiving applications for enabling documents. This assessments of needs only relates to enabling documents,” said the department.

“Home affairs is joining the government effort to alleviate the impact of the disaster. Without enabling documents, people cannot begin to rebuild their lives,” Nzuza said.

Home Affairs will take all the necessary steps to ensure corruption is avoided during the intervention.

Source: South African Government News Agency