How some South Africans get discriminated against by Home Affairs

When Robert’s* daughter turned 18, she became eligible for a small inheritance her great-grandmother had left her. To claim it, she had to approach the Master of the High Court, Western Cape.

But after having her application rejected thrice for tiny bureaucratic missteps — typing the form instead of filling it out by hand; printing the form over two pages instead of back-to-back; a police station number being illegible — Robert’s daughter was told she would not be able to access her inheritance for a new reason.

“She was told they can’t verify her identity without a smart ID card, so she has to go to Home Affairs and get one first,” Robert told Daily Maverick this week.

Just one problem: Robert is a South African who lived in the UK for 23 years and had two kids before moving back 11 years ago, and Robert’s daughter is a permanent resident of South Africa, not a citizen. As such, she joins the ranks of South Africa’s naturalised citizens (including this journalist) who are not eligible to apply for a smart ID card.

But the official at the Master of the High Court office was adamant: a green barcoded ID, of the kind that permanent residents and naturalised citizens are still issued, was insufficient proof of identity to claim an inheritance.

Wider discrimination against naturalised citizens

Robert described his daughter’s situation as a “Catch-22”, but it is faced by millions of South Africans who were not born into citizenship.

Currently ineligible for the smart IDs which were introduced in 2013, they also face the prospect of the green barcoded IDs they do hold — and perhaps most critically, use as voting identification — being phased out imminently.

In addition, they are excluded from certain Home Affairs services — such as renewing passports through bank branches via the eHomeAffairs platform.

The issue, according to immigration expert Claudia Pizzocri, is that the Identification Act of 1997 “stipulates that the population register should capture certain additional information pertaining to naturalised citizens, citizens born overseas and permanent residents”.

It’s most likely that there wasn’t any “discriminatory intent” in mind, says Pizzocri, the CEO of the law firm Eisenberg & Associates.

The restrictions on permanent residents and naturalised citizens are probably simply “due to the manner in which the technology and systems were programmed in the early phase of the implementation [of the smart ID cards], which, at the time, was limited to South African-born citizens”, she says.

Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber confirmed as much to Daily Maverick this week, saying: “Most people fail to realise that significant IT issues are at the root of all challenges we face in Home Affairs, including on this front.”

Schreiber said he shared the public frustration that “such a seemingly simple systems fix — enabling naturalised citizens and permanent residents to obtain smart IDs — is actually just a symptom of a much deeper malaise in the IT space”.

GNU minister pledges to address issue

The matter has been flagged by the DA in the past. In 2023, the party’s spokesperson on Home Affairs, Angel Khanyile, lodged a complaint with the Public Protector over the failure of Home Affairs to issue smart ID cards to naturalised South African citizens.

At the time, the DA accused Home Affairs of “reducing naturalised citizens to second-class citizens”.

Khanyile wrote: “As a member of Parliament who sits on the Parliament portfolio committee on Home Affairs, I have raised the issue several times whenever it came under discussion. On each occasion, the Minister of Home Affairs has made repeated undertakings to address it but nothing has come out of that.”

Now the DA home affairs minister has pledged to resolve the issue once and for all.

Despite reports earlier this month that the green barcoded ID books will be scrapped by the end of the year, Schreiber is adamant that “the green ID book will not be declared invalid before every person who is entitled to a South African ID — including naturalised citizens and permanent residents — is able to obtain a smart ID”.

Schreiber said the department’s target was to achieve this before the end of 2025 “by expanding the footprint of Home Affairs to hundreds more bank branches to enhance access, and to make the necessary IT system changes to enable naturalised citizens and permanent residents to obtain smart IDs for the very first time ever”.

The home affairs minister added: “I want to give comfort to all affected persons that there is no ‘conspiracy’ here to deprive them of access to smart IDs.”

Silence from Master of Court

The Master of the Western Cape High Court failed to respond to Daily Maverick’s request for comment this week on the case of Robert’s daughter.

Immigration expert Pizzocri says, however, that it is probably not an isolated incident.

“Unfortunately, similar barriers to accessing services are experienced across the board,” she told Daily Maverick.

But there is no justification in legal terms for a green barcoded ID being treated as a lesser form of identification, Pizzocri insists.

“To date, legitimately issued green ID books comply with the definition of an identity card in terms of the [Identification] Act and should be accepted as a valid proof of identity for all purposes.”

Schreiber did not offer comment specifically on the Master of Court incident, but reiterated: “Green ID books remain valid forms of identification.” DM 

*Robert is a pseudonym, requested out of fear of reprisals. The source’s real identity is known to Daily Maverick.