Victims of an ID scam that is believed to be taking place at the Home Affairs have pleaded with President Cyril Ramaphosa to order the Department of Home Affairs to unblock their Identity Documents.
To give impetus to their demands, around 100 of the victims marched under the banner of NGO Ahikomaneni Ma Africa to the Union Buildings on Tuesday to hand a memorandum of grievances to President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Secretary General of Ahikomaneni Ma Africa Brian Gezani Baloyi told Tshwane Talks that their Identity Documents have been blocked by the Department of Home Affairs, and this has made life miserable for them.
“We are living under depression as people whose identities have been blocked and we made several applications to get the Department of Home Affairs to unblock our IDs, but we are told that our applications are fraudulent; that we are foreigners who are trying to use IDs of dead South African people,” said Baloyi.
Baloyi insisted that he and his fellow ID scam victims were born and bred here in South Africa and that they have been using their IDs for years without a problem, have been employed and even voted in several general elections using their IDs until they were suddenly blocked.
“Home Affairs blocked our IDs without us knowing and now our lives are stuck, we can’t access our bank accounts, our children can’t be admitted to school because we as parents don’t have IDs, we have bond houses which we must repay but can’t do so, and we can’t even join local burial society clubs,” he said.
He pointed out that this state of affairs has caused conflict and possible break up of their marriages.
Baloyi expressed grief that the Johannesburg High Court ruled against them in their efforts to get their IDs unblocked, declaring them illegal migrants.
He said some of them have been living with the pain of blocked IDs for 10 to 20 years now.
Most of the ID scam victims come from various areas of Limpopo Province like Venda, Phala-Borwa as well as from the Mpumalanga, Eastern Cape, Gauteng, Kwa-Zulu Natal, Northern Cape, Province.
“We strongly believe that our IDs have been stolen by Home Affairs official’s and sold to other people,” he said.
Another marcher, Solomon Mthembu told Tshwane Talks that he was never informed officially by the Home Affairs department that his ID has been blocked and only realised this when he went to make enquires about it at the selfsame Home Affairs when the ID that he was using was declined by various institutions including banks.
“I was employed but now I have been fired after being accused of using a fraudulent ID which belongs to a dead person and even now I can’t access the little money that I had in the bank because I am considered to be a dead person,” he said.
“I then gathered my mother’s birth certificate, my school documents and hospital records, took fingerprints and photos and presented them to the Department of Home Affairs to prove that I am still alive and that I am a South African, yet I haven’t received any response in this regard from Home Affairs,” lamented Mthembu.
“I couldn’t vote in several general elections due to the blocked ID, yet I have the right to vote as I was born in this country,” he explained.
He said the reason for the blockage of his ID and that of other victims like him was a ploy to reduce the number of people voting for black parties so that white voters can get an advantage.
Official in the office of the presidency Hans Teffo received the memorandum on behalf of President Ramaphosa.