A technical problem has seen the department of affairs processing as few as 5,000 passport and ID applications a day compared to the daily capacity of 20,000.
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A home affairs technical “glitch” has affected thousands of people wanting to apply for passports and identity documents.

In a statement issued on Friday, the department admitted that 194 of its 412 offices were affected by a “glitch in the technology it uses to process applications for smart ID cards and passports”.

This has resulted in service interruptions over the past two weeks.

“The service interruptions have seen the department processing as few as 5,000 applications a day compared with the daily capacity of 20,000. The department was able to process 16,000 applications only in two days in the past two weeks,” it said.

The department said IT specialists were trying to restore the capability of the system.

“The minister of home affairs, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, has authorised front offices to manually issue passports which are already in offices to citizens who want to collect them. However, passport applications cannot be taken manually. Smart ID cards can’t be issued manually.

“No other services are affected.

“The department expresses its deepest apologies to the public for the inconvenience and appeals for patience while the system is being stabilised,” the department said.