ABSA, has become the fourth major bank to set up a Smart ID Card and passport application centre where the Department of Home Affairs is currently conducting its bank pilot project.

Minister of Home Affairs, Malusi Gigaba, announced today that ABSA recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the department, joining Standard Bank, FNB and Nedbank who already kicked off the project with bank employees last year.

Each of the banks have three operational centres, making it 12 sites in total where the process is being piloted and will be the first to officially open to the public after Home Affairs closes the pilot phase.

Gigaba also said 200 000 Smart IDs and 5 000 green barcoded ID books are yet to be collected and urged those who have not collected their issued IDs to collect in time to register to the upcoming municipal elections, if they need to and also avoid having their IDs destroyed.

“Our policy states that documents that are uncollected for a period of six months should be returned to head office, where they are kept for a further six months. Should the documents not be collected after 12 months, they are destroyed,” Gigaba said.

But the minister has relaxed the uncollected destruction policy between the voter registration and local government elections period, to give people more time to head to their nearest Home Affairs office and collect.

Gigaba added that uncollected documents are well accounted for so that no corruption or fraud can take place using them.

[Image – Tyger Valley]