Crowds gather outside a Home Affairs office. System downtime ‘trebled’ at our branches within the last 10 months – Image via Facebook
System offline! Home Affairs to open for extended hours after tech disaster
Home Affairs will be open for longer hours on Monday. That’s after a major system outage caused chaos on Friday.
Crowds gather outside a Home Affairs office. System downtime ‘trebled’ at our branches within the last 10 months – Image via Facebook
“The system is offline” is a phrase that strikes fear into the hearts of us South Africans. Hundreds of Home Affairs offices were offline on Friday. This left almost all services unrenderable except the collection of passports. Thousands of South Africans had to be turned away at the door. Now, the problem has been resolved and hours are being extended to help attend to the latest backlog.
Home Affairs set for extended hours after cable break
According to Home Affairs, the system outage was caused by a cable break from the State Information Technology Agency.
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On Sunday, the department confirmed that the cable issue had been fixed and all services have now been restored.
Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has now ordered all offices to extend their operating hours until 18:30 on Monday the 4th of April.
“Extend operating hours to ensure that all clients that visited the offices on Friday are served.
Motsoaledi’s spokesperson Siya Qoza
Minister Motsoaledi said the Department owed it to the public to extend operating hours to compensate for the unfortunate network failure incident.”
All in the office to be served
The department has also confirmed that anyone who is inside a Home Affairs office by 18:30, will be assisted.
“The Department appreciates the patience of the public on Friday and apologises for the inconvenience caused by the unfortunate network failure.”
Motsoaledi has been receiving a mixed bag of attention in recent weeks. His hardline stance against illegal foreign nationals in the country has drawn mixed reactions. Anti-xenophobia activists in the country have called for Motsoaledi to resign from his position.
At the same time, some members of the anti-illegal immigrant vigilante group Operation Dudula, have praised Motsoaledi for pushing for a tougher approach to immigration.
