Dear Dr Schreiber
I am South African by birth but not currently a SA citizen as my citizenship was taken away when I became a naturalised UK citizen many years ago. I lived in England for 35 years as my husband was a dental surgeon with a dental practice in Cambridgeshire. When he passed away last year I decided to return to SA to be closer to my birth family.
Dealing with the SA Dept of Home Affairs to keep my status here legal has been hell on earth. It is the most incompetent and inefficient department anyone could imagine, and more! The cadres employed at DHA are just that: cadres. They mostly have no idea of what they are supposed to do. The system is so corrupt that when I eventually after many months received my Green SA ID book I was told by the licensing department that I could not use it to register the car I bought in SA as it was "too new", that too many fake ID books are used, and that they wanted to see and use my 35 year "old" ID book- which I luckily kept all the time I was away Hence my car is now registered at an address where I haven't been to in about 40 years. Home Affairs also did not want to use my current home address as my registered address, hence your records show my address as an address in KZN where I haven't been near in 35+ years. I've tried to change this but have not been able to do so as the HA Pretoria office workers are apparently too lazy or incompetent, or probably both, to enter the correct details on their computers. That's just part of the sorry story. The full story will take many pages to relate. Just hearing DHA mentioned makes me feel as if someone is hammering hot nails into my head.
I hope you have the stamina and guts to sort out this cesspit. It will not be easy.
Good luck.