By April this year all matriculants across the country should have an identity document, a home affairs official said on Thursday.
|||By April this year all matriculants across the country should have an identity document, a home affairs official said on Thursday.
Director general Mkuseli Apleni said his department would work with the education department to ensure all matriculants had their IDs before exams started.
He said the education department would register the pupils and home affairs would process the applications.
In 2012, about 600,000 youths applied to get identity documents.
“We saw a great improvement in the number of 16-year-olds applying for ids in 2012.”
The department said it would not increase fees for the application of identity documents or passports.
“The last tariffs were introduced in 2011, resulting in, among others, the cost for the second copy of IDs increasing to R140 and that of passports to R400.”
The cost for a new passport, if lost before reaching its expiry date, would remain R800.
The department would penalise parents who failed to register their children within 30 days of their birth.
“Failure to register births of children within 30 days of delivery is to break the law... once regulations are finalised, penalties will be imposed on parents and caregivers who have not registered children.”
Amendments to legislation governing citizenship, and births and deaths, were submitted to Parliament and signed into law by President Jacob Zuma. Apleni said the department was finalising regulations that would govern the introduction of the acts. - Sapa