15 February 2006
Around 220 000 South Africans can look forward to having their identity
documents (IDs) delivered to their home addresses by the South African Post
Office. The Post Office, together with the Department of Home Affairs, has
launched a programme in terms of which the Post Office is set to deliver
roughly 220 000 IDs as soon as possible.
The Post Office will then deliver an estimated 10 000 to 15 000 IDs per
month. At a Ministerial Imbizo in Giyani on Friday, 17 February 2006, the Group
Chief Executive Officer of the South African Post Office, Khutso Mampeule,
handed a pledge to the Minister of Home Affairs, Mr NN Mapisa-Nqukula. This
pledge states that the Post Office will provide addresses to all South Africans
and also assist in the delivery of IDs to our citizens.
The Post Office has concluded a 12-month contract with the Department of
Home Affairs for the delivery of IDs. This contract is expected to be extended
at the end of this period. This service is made possible by the Post Officeâs
address delivery project. Street delivery has been introduced to all urban
areas in South Africa. Since it is not possible to deliver mail to someone
without an address, the introduction of street delivery has made this project
possible.
The Post Office aimed to introduce 1,5 million street addresses per year in
rural areas where there are no street names and no house numbers using a system
of geographical coordinates. During 2005 the Post Office exceeded this target
by 300 000.
Security
On delivery, IDs will have to be signed for by the owner. To make sure that
the ID is delivered to the correct person, the mailman will compare the photo
in the document to the person taking delivery. The IDs are handled in a
dedicated, highly secure mail stream.
Post Office partnering with Government
With roughly 2 600 outlets in South Africa, no organisation is better suited
to being a conduit for government services to the people â especially as many
of these outlets are in rural areas with hardly any other service provider.
Motor vehicle licences can be renewed at certain Post Office outlets in the
Free State and Eastern Cape. At 580 post offices, customers can access the
Internet at terminals offering low-cost access. Customers purchase an internet
access voucher at the counter and only the time they actually spend on the
Internet is deducted. The voucher can be used repeatedly until the time is
exhausted. Again, the majority of these terminals are in remote areas where the
population have no other public access to the internet.
The Post Office acts as paymaster for social grants in a number of
provinces. In the North West Province, recipients can open Postbank accounts
and have their grants paid into these accounts. They can then withdraw their
grant when it suits them at any Saswitch enabled automatic teller machine
(ATM). This is only possible with a valid home address and the South African
Post Office is committed to provide an additional 2,2 million addresses by the
end of 2007. A total of four million additional addresses have been provided
over a three-year period.
Enquiries:
Twiggs Xiphu
Tel: (012) 401 7200
Issued by: South African Post Office
15 February 2006
