# ID for permanent residents – waiting times (and wrinkles)



## balaam (Jan 13, 2020)

forgive me if there's an existing thread on this, i didn't find it: i applied for ID in Feb 2019. staff at the Barrack Street office in Cape Town said it would take 3-4 months, but nothing so far.

*what are typical wait times? how has anyone else succeeded in moving things along?* (tedious explanation of details at bottom).


wrinkle: my original PR certificate was issued with an error - and immediately taken back by staff for correction. i never received the corrected version, but eventually got a letter attesting to my PR status instead.

i travel fairly often, and while the letter is famliar to SA border control, airline staff vetting documents in various places overseas are mystified. worse, the letter refers to having a sticker put into my passport, but Home Affairs no longer does those stickers...

does anyone else have a similar letter, and problem with proving SA residence status whilst overseas? having been denied boarding twice now (and dossing down overnight at the airport), i'm desperate for a workaround. 

thanks

_ __ ____


my PR certificate, granted in terms of 26(b), was issued – with an error on it – in 2006 and, a Home Affairs ingenue at the time, i handed it back for rectification without insisting on a copy to hang onto, though i had one of the old stickers put into my passport; after 12 years of low-key drama, and a couple of bitter struggles to have fresh stickers into renewed passports, HA issued me a letter attesting to my PR status rather than a corrected or reissued certificate.

no problems with the letter as proof of PR when i applied for ID in Feb 2019, but my application seems to have stalled. there was an immediate request for a marriage record which i laid hold of and submitted that same week, and i was told to wait 3-4 months.

then silence. i've been back to Barrack Street and contacted HACC: in September, they said, _Wait_. in November, they said they were escalating, gave me a case number, said, _Check back in 2 weeks._ then fell silent. now Barrack Street says, _Wait (and 3-4 months was always a myth_ and, _It could be six months with the marriage section_; and that only the HACC people can update me.

i'm worried that as with my PR, waiting only means my application sinks into a dusty pile of neglected applications on some overworked person's desk. certainly my regular, polite inquiries got me nowhere with PR, and i only got results when i spammed every email and phone contact for Home Affairs officials that i could turn up, right up to the relevant Deputy Director General (from where an amusing email chain of one line instructions to "deal with this" cascaded down the line one morning, i get a phone call, and a couple of weeks later, i was sorted. ish.)

i could try that again, but if in fact it DOES typically take a year or two for a permanent resident to get ID, i don't feel entitled to rattle any cages...


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## mawire (Jan 27, 2018)

balaam said:


> forgive me if there's an existing thread on this, i didn't find it.


Nope, I won't forgive you on this one. Please post HERE, will help you there.


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