Witness Khumalo - a non-person....

More on the saga with Witness Khumalo's ID book and pension card.
So, I look up the Home affairs office on the net. Find the contact for the big shot in charge of the place from a provincial point of view, and email him. I think the email went to his sidekick. But, believe it or not by Thursday, (2 days later) I got a response. An email saying that my note has been passed on to someone who will contact me, and giving his name, tel number, and email address. So I figure I'll wait till Monday next week to call. Friday I'm in the car going somewhere and the cell rings. It's the dude from Home Affairs. Damned if I didn't nearly roll the car !!! Anyway, we agreed that I would take Witness to the Home Affairs Head offices in Pretoria on Tuesday (yesterday), and they would sort out his problems with the ID book, and pension card.
Well, spent the whole day with the big shot from Home Affairs. In fact he is the "Deputy Director General - Civic Services". However, all the legwork was done by one of his reportees.
It's scary!! As far as they can see, Mr. Witness Khumal does not exist!! Couldn't find him on any of their systems. (Must say though their systems are questionable, and search functions retarded. However, even took fingerprints, and went to other side of town to check these against their records, and even there... nothing. Drove back home and went to Welfare (they put him on the social pension fund 18 months ago). They have no record of him. Went to the company tasked with making the monthly social welfare payouts, they cant find him on their systems. He does not exist. So I can only assume that the guy who occasionally works in my garden is non-existant, and that maybe my garden does not exist!!!

One problem is that basically he is illiterate, so they are questioning his date of birth amongst other things, and if he has this wrong it's more difficult to sort out. But the fingerprints dont lie...

Anyway, I'm now waiting for the Home Afairs guy to call me so we can find a way to get Witness a new ID book, and back on to social welfare (pension). Problem is, he will have a new ID number, so he can't claim the back pay due to him since he lost his docs, and stopped getting his pension! But thats not all, Home Affairs says that the problem now is Witness can't prove he is South African, was born here, what his date of birth is... nada.He is a non-person, and maybe they won't be able to issue him with documents! So much for technology, so much for "UBUNTU" (for the people / by the people) and "BATHO PELE" - putting the people first .....

And as a closing statement to me by the DDG-CC...."How many more people out there have this problem, and we can't reach them, and they do not have someone like you to help them.... especially in the rural areas."

Yup, there are a lot of them, and they make for very pissed off citizens.
Another day in Africa. Salagatle!