Appalling SA embassy services bedevil SA workers abroad

Here’s the scenario: you are working in Shanghai and your SA passport is about to expire in a few months. Good, responsible citizen that you are, and not wishing to have trouble with the Chinese authorities when renewing your work visa, you duly go to the SA consulate in Shanghai.

Bureaucratic procedures combined with the Chinese love for paperwork (remember they invented the fabric and love to swim in it, I assure you), the process takes several hours, and there is no one else there, that is to say, no queue. Ja well no fine, such is life. Your passport photos are inadequate for some reason so you go downstairs and across the road to get a fresh set. All your fingers, both palms and full handprints are inked and placed on an official document. The whole paperwork thing really takes a while but ja well no fine so gaan die lewe. You are a Sawth Effricen, so you are as stoic as a bulldog and you can take the punch/jy kan die punch vat. The Chinese official helping you is a nice bloke anyway so you chat about life in Shanghai.

You then pay and wait for the receipt. And wait and wait. Eventually you go back to the cashier window and ask how long is it gonna take to get a receipt. The chap that you rather liked looks at you blankly and says the SA consulate official who has the authority to stamp the receipt is away for a while. It is lunch time so you know exactly what meeting it is that all bureaucrats are extremely disciplined about, so … ja well no fine on that score but why couldn’t the Chinese gentleman at least tell you he had gone to that unbelievably important meeting? You do have other things to do, like go back to work before the boss gets the hell in.

After a brief discussion that turns into a heated debate the official you used to like gives you a receipt without that bliksem stamp but at least you have proof. He thanks you kindly for your understanding and co-operation and further promises to courier a stamped, signed, sealed, framed, kissed or whatever upgrade to your home, but that never arrives. Ja well no fine, all is bureaucratically normal, nothing specific to hak or complain about.

Three months pass and you send a polite email enquiring about your passport, including the three ID numbers you have (SA ID, passport ID — a little different, a caveat to readers — and sommer nog ’n eenetjie you didn’t know about above your passport mug-shot if you remember correctly its whereabouts).

You receive an email a few days later stating nothing has been received but the matter will be followed up, with another “thanking you kindly for your understanding”. Ja well no fine … Then you receive a frightening email a week or so later, bearing in mind you are a foreigner in this country and are required to be legally here. Here, ek se, is the unedited cut and paste except for the italics and the words “you wince”:

“Dear Mr. Mackenzie,

We are still following up with your application with head office these days, however, with no answer yet. According to the passport application registration online, there is no record of any of passport applications of August this year (yours inclusive). Therefore, we assume that they may have lost the whole batch! While awaiting the confirmation from head office, I think it would be more proactive if we courier another set of application to head office . So, we need your cooperation and understanding [you wince] to come to our office again for a new application form and a set of fingerprints along with two passport photos.

Sorry for the inconvenience incurred and looking forward to your kind attention to this matter.

Best Regards! …. ”

Now it’s no longer ja well no fine and so gaan die lewe.

You scratch your head, check your receipt (hell, pity the upgraded, kissed or whatever receipt never arrived) and see the date was 13^th July. In quiet desperation you email the oke and say you did it in July, knowing it probably collected dust until the next diplomatic bag / mule with saddle bags / pigeon with collar / whatever, was sent off in August.

Next email:

“Our diplomatic bag goes to South Africa once a month, mostly around 8th of the month. If you applied after that date, application will have to go with the next bag. Thanks for your understanding and co-operation…”

Of course, you are now tired of being thanked for “your ~~copulation~~ co-operation and understanding” and things are no longer ja well no fine. How do you stay legally in the country when either the SA consulate or the relevant section in South Africa are just not doing their job and perhaps blameshifting?

The above was nearly my scenario. Fortunately, I live life on my Irish passport, a wonderful EU first world passport.

Ah, the first world. Let’s compare getting a new passport from the Irish Consulate. When I was living in Southampton, England, my Irish passport had expired and I was living on my SA passport, which I had used to get into the country. Ja well no fine I sent off the expired one with relevant documentation and the fee to the Irish Consulate in London. I got back my new passport about two weeks later. I need say no more.

But now what about all the South Africans in Shanghai and elsewhere in the world who do not have — I am embarrassed to say — what I call a “first world” passport? God help them. God help South Africa, every government department going through corruption and crises from Eskom to Telkom to the Post Office which stole my Christmas and New Year cards to my octogenarian mother last year.

I am not writing this merely as a complaint, but as a concerned citizen and an embarrassed South African.