Different home affairs

Tim Leavey, Kenilworth

Like your correspondents, the Hansells, I have lived here for over 40 years and had the same problem with my permanent residence certificate (“Nightmares thanks to Home Affairs”, Off My Trolley, June 21).

I applied for a copy as they did and was told it would take nine months. I eventually waited nearly two years. Patience I am afraid is the name of the game: emails, phone calls got me nowhere.

When applying you are given a tracking number which you must track periodically which I did till suddenly one day it told me my certificate was ready for collection.

While waiting for this document to arrive, I travelled to the UK twice by simply taking my new passport and old passport with the stamp in it and showing both at Passport Control going in and out the country without any problem.

I also had my SA ID book with me that shows I am a permanent resident.

As an aside, my wife and I applied for new ID books in May at Wynberg Home Affairs (HA) as ours were stolen.

We were there for less than an hour applying for them and five minutes to collect them. Being over 70 has its advantages sometimes.

I read your column with interest every week

Courtney Jacobs, Cape Town

My story is different from what I read in your column.

I got divorced in December 2016. I remarried end of December last year and when my wife went to register our marriage she found out that I’m still married to my ex-wife.

It has become more than a struggle to get my divorce registered.

HA’s phone number is always “broken” and my lawyer told me it will cost a lot of money to get a court order to get HA to do their job which they should be doing anyway.

Justice is blaming HA and HA is blaming justice.