The Mercury
For six years, Margaret Hayne has tried to sort out documentation that will enable her to emigrate to the UK, but the Department of Home Affairs appears incapable of providing the one paper she still needs. Photo: ZAIL SINGH
Durban – Durban woman Margaret Hayne is nearing her wits’ end after waiting more than six years for a piece of paper from the Department of Home Affairs.
The paper she needs is a vault copy of her birth certificate, which she requires before she can emigrate to England to be with her sick daughter who has been diagnosed with cancer.
The document is the main requirement when applying for British citizenship.
Hayne, 57, wants to move to London to be with her daughter Lisa, 33, and provide support to her grandchildren Jett, 16, and Noah, 5.
Hayne, from Morningside, said waiting for the document had turned to agony, resulting in her taking medication for depression.
“Whenever I walk out of the Home Affairs office, after being told my vault copy has not been done, I feel rejected and sometimes I am suicidal – it has been six years now,” she said, adding that her grandchildren often asked when she was coming.
Instead of receiving the much-needed document, she was first sent an incorrect one and then an incomplete document with the Home Affairs director-general’s office stamp.
According to e-mails, some of the delays have been blamed on a fire that destroyed archive records in the 1970s, and also an incorrect date for her parents’ wedding day on one of the first application forms.
But even after this date was corrected and new forms were filled out, the vault copy has yet to be issued.
Previous Home Affairs documents issued to her were rejected by the British embassy in South Africa.
Hayne said she had paid administrative fees three times to the department to have her application processed.
Although the staff at the Home Affairs office in Durban had tried to help her, the deadlock appeared to be at the Pretoria office where the document is kept.
“I hoped that repaying the administration fee every time I reapplied, would fast-track my application,” she said.
Albert Matsaung, the acting manager of KwaZulu-Natal Home Affairs, acknowledged that an incorrect document was sent to Hayne this year.
“The application was started from scratch and sent to our head office to reissue the vault copy. This certificate has not been issued as yet,” he said.
Benita Opperman, from the Pretoria branch, said after issuing the incorrect vault copy, they could not send another one as “it is going to seem that the department just issues it for the sake of issuing. The applicant would have to apply for an amendment”.
Last week, when The Mercury contacted Home Affairs for an explanation for the delays, spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa drew the attention of senior officials in the department to the matter, urging them to intervene and to provide “an urgent answer”.
The Mercury
