Dear Dr Aaron Motsoaledi,

It is with great dismay, disappointment and indeed frustration that I write to you.

Firstly, which I believe is important to highlight, is that I am not writing to you as my first port of call. I have tried my utmost to follow the steps of hierarchy through the Department of Home Affairs in order to allow for every person in the Department with whom I had contact to have the opportunity to fulfill their duties.
Over the past 3 (three) years I have personally visited the DHA office in Somerset West on three occasions, I have met with the Office Manager (Angelique Martins) there on more than one occasion and have sent her in excess of 20 (twenty emails). I have escalated the issue to the Regional Manager (Yusuf Simons), but also have not had a response despite numerous emails to him.
I have even consulted with the South African High Commission in Vietnam, as well as the Consulate in Sri Lanka, out of sheer desperation.
My emails to the general inquiry email address on the DHA website goes unanswered and I have spent countless hours on the phone (at international rates) listening to "All our agents are currently busy" for up to 20 minutes at a time.

So, here I am. In short, all I am asking for is to have my Unabridged Marriage Certificate for which I applied 3 years ago. This certificate will allow me to have it notarized by the Vietnamese Consulate in South Africa, in order for me to be with my Vietnamese wife and son. Is it really so hard to understand that a dad wants to be with is child, or a husband wants to be with his wife? I am being kept a 'prisoner' in Maldives at the moment, as I can't move my family to South Africa, as in South Africa itself, the Immigration authorities will not accept my DHA-30 as a valid marriage certificate to a foreigner, hence I can't obtain a visa for my wife to South Africa. Similarly, I am unable to obtain a visa to enter Vietnam, as they also don't accept the DHA-30.

So, may I ask you Dr. Motsoaledi, how would you feel in such a situation. How would you feel having all dignity, freedom and humanity stripped from you because of the incompetence and ignorance someone like myself now had to suffer for more than three years?
How does it make you feel as the Minister in charge of such a department?
I trust that it does not fill you with a sense of pride, the same way in which I have lost most of my sense of hope.

I plead with you, with tears in my eyes and sorrow in my broken heart. Please can you hold somebody in DHA accountable for performing a simple task, which should essentially be a normal civil service task?

You are literally my last port of call, as after this I have no other resolve but to refer my plea to the office of the President and involve the media. I trust that such adverse actions will become uncalled for after your kind intervention.

Kind regards,

Christoph