Offices open on voter registration days

2011-01-27 22:54

Pretoria - Offices of the department of home affairs will be opened on the Independent Electoral Commission's voter registration weekend in February, home affairs director general Mkuseli Apleni said on Thursday.

Apleni said the department's offices would be open on the weekend of Februrary 5 and 6 between 08:00 and 17:00 to allow would-be voters a chance to apply for their identity books or to collect them.

He said that the department had 767 889 identity books waiting to be collected.

The offices would be open for extended hours on the day before the IEC's voter registration weekend.

IDs are, for security reasons, only held at the office of application for a period of six months from date of issue and then forwarded to the department's head office for a further six months before being destroyed.

Apleni said officials and mobile offices would be deployed to areas where there are no home affairs offices in close proximity to voter registration stations.

Mosotho Moepya, the deputy chief electoral officer of the IEC, said that there were 22.6 million people on the voters' roll.

- SAPA