Home

FEATURE: Home affairs launches online branch appointment booking system

Reading Time: 3 minutes

SABC News’ Tshepiso Moche reports on related tech developments in South Africa and globally. In this edition, he looks at the Department of Home Affairs, Branch Appointment Booking System (BABS). 

The Department of Home Affairs has launched an online system as it tries to improve its services.

The Branch Appointment Booking System (BABS) enables people to make bookings online in the comfort of their homes. The aim of this new system is, among others, to get rid of long and frustrating queues.

The department believes that the introduction of BABS will improve services at many of its offices.

Long queues and poor services at some of the department offices have opened opportunities for criminals who often pose as home affairs officials to rob unsuspecting members of the public.

Home Affairs department plans to overhaul its operations:

At times, people who are reluctant to stand in long queues are often required to pay certain amounts of money to those who are manning the queue, in order for them to jump the frustrating queues.

Unfortunately, for those who do not have money to jump the queues, they have no option but to stand in long queues, during the cold weather or the scorching sun – only to return home unassisted in some instances.

BABS aims at providing members of the public with an opportunity to book a time slot to visit a home affairs office to process their application.

Home affairs deputy director-general for Institutional Planning & Support, Thulani Mavuso says, “What we are looking at now is that when people book on the system, the office managers will get a list every day of people who have made bookings for particular services.”

The department says it has put measures in place to avoid situations where agents would be allowed to book spots and just to resell those bookings to people at a later stage.

According to the department, walk-ins will not be turned away, but people who make bookings online will be given first priority when visiting home affairs offices.

“We are not going to turn people back at this point in time. But we just want to encourage South Africans to move to that particular mode of making online bookings instead of waking up at 5am to go and queue,” he explains.

The BABS system is used for identification documents (ID) and passport applications.

The department says in the near future, selected home affairs offices will process smart ID and passport applications only for clients who have booked an appointment through the online system.

“We have also limited this booking appointment system to just two … which is the passport and IDs. Because of the high demand for those documents,” adds Mavuso.

The system is currently being piloted in just over 30 of the busiest offices.

The department says the system will be rolled out to more offices in the coming months.

Below is the full interview with deputy director-general for Institutional Planning & Support, Thulani Mavuso:

Author

MOST READ