I have personally never seen such widespread system failure, incompetence and general apathy in any government department anywhere else in the world. My wife and I have experienced the following in the past month:
- Telephones are not answered;
- I'm told to come back later because your systems are offline;
- I cannot download forms from your website, yet when I go into the department to get the forms I'm told "We don't have those forms" and to go to the main branch in Umgeni Rd. in Durban;
- When I actually go to the main branch, I'm told "We have run out of those forms - use this one instead" and given a 20th generation faded photo copy of a form that doesn't have the required information;
- A 10 hour wait to be attended to at the VISA department in Umgeni Rd in Durban - even thought here were only 9 people in the line in front of us;
- When applying for a VISA, I'm told "We have an SMS system to tell you when your VISA is ready but it doesn't work so just come back in about a month to see if it's been approved";
I am disgusted and embarrassed to constantly have to make excuses for my US Citizen wife at the sub-standard service received throughout the department.
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