collecting a passport (or document) on behalf of someone else at south africa house, london

howzit


just one of those "public service access" posts, look you see, in which i try to help people out. and the people do seem to need some help, going on my encounters with such on my second (and may it be final, for a long time at least) trip to where they do the south african passports (and documents) for people in the UK. that would of course be at 15 Whitehall, London SW1A 2DD.

i should probably do a second, more intensive post on the how to go about actually applying for the passport and what you need to do it. for now, let me give you once again this link to the first thing i wrote on it. and to state again, in no uncertain terms, take every official document you have with you, and take photocopies of all of them with you. failure to do so will cost you a lot, and cause even more delays.

with respect to time and delays, yes, get ready to write off an entire day when you go to apply. indeed, i shall get to the important stuff of collecting just now, but here we are.

just over the roof of that passing (less than opportunistic) van you should be able to make out quite the congregation of people. that is the queue for the sa embassy office, or south africa house. at 8:30 in the morning, when it opens at 8:45. i am not kidding with you, the people. one person i spoke to arrived at 4am to commence queuing. the service here is at least equal in terms of being inefficient and inept as all such services in south africa. come early, and be prepared to stand around for hours. and hours.

one very small, slight mercy is that (ostensibly) collections people do not have to queue for hours and hours. well, not as such. yes, you must join that queue first, but they come along and pull people aside who are here to collect only. and make sure you have all the documentation and letter you need to collect, or else "no soup for you", to quote Seinfeld. because it is my blog and i can, to be sure.

right, part one of what you need to take with you. part two is later, and as important. but, first, documents required. these are the current SA passport or (passports) of the person (people) you are collecting for. your own passport. if possible the SA ID book (or card i now believe) of the person (people) collecting for. your SA ID book (if you have such). the original, unabridged birth certificate of everyone you are picking up a passport for. not sure if i needed it now that i think, but for good measure the unabridged marriage certificate in cases where the passport/s being collected are for children with just one parent going to collect. also, you need the original receipts issued. yes, you need to complete the section at the bottom of them, but you need a letter too - see below.

please, if you are going to go and collect passports (or anything) off of south africa house, take the time to re-read that check list. don't go without the above (or the below important thing) unless for some reason you thrive on frustration.

where in london (innit) am i (moi) in the above picture? stood outside the single most profitable shop, or any such business concern, in the city. just what makes it so? they are the nearest place to south africa house to have a photocopier. a very slow, rubbish and expensive one. if you want to make a lot of money very, very quickly, then get a shop unit as close to 15 Whitehall as you can and put a big poster up advertising doing photocopies.

i am not kidding. the information about them needing photocopies of all documents (in many multiples) is hidden on the official website. by around 9am there was already a queue of 6 or 7 frustrated people at this shop waiting for photocopies to be done. by the end of the day, and going on the conversations i had with people waiting in the queue ("we don't need photocopies it did not say anything about them on the website", i was rebuffed more than once), i expect that shop made a right tidy profit.

back to important stuff. so, i will do italics and bold. you need to have a letter with you, signed by the person you are collecting for and yourself, stating all the details of what you are collecting. yes, indeed there is a section on the receipt to put all of this, and i suggest you fill that in and sign it, too. but as someone there at the same time as me discovered, they have no interest in that at all. whatsoever. no separate letter, stating all of the passports (or documents) to be collected, no collection.

sorry to diverge (or take a detour) once more, but why not. exactly how you get to be so inefficient and incompetent is a wonder. something that does not help is that apparently all staff go on a ten minute break after speaking to three people. never mind the queue outside. generally, also, i would suggest that passwords exist for a reason. that reason is not to write them in big letters on a piece of paper and leave them on a desk for all to see. data protection rules were created for a reason.

anyway, the letter. if you want a basic template, here you go. bits that appear in them chunky brackets [like this] are for your details.

[name & address of authorising person]

South Africa House
Office of Department of Home Affairs
15 Whitehall
London
SW1A 2DD

[date]

Ref : [reference from receipt/s]

Dear Sir / Madam

I, [authoriser name], South African ID [ID number], SA Passport number [passport number], hereby authorise [name of person collecting], [nationality of] passport number [their passport number] to collect the following passports. Due to the distance required to travel I am unable to attend in person

Name : [person for the passport]

SA Passport Number :  [passport number]

SA ID Number : [id number]

Application receipt number : [receipt number]

(you need to do this for all the passports or documents on the same letter, just copy above as required)

Thank you for your assistance

[name of authoriser, signature above]          [name of collector, signature above]

or any sort of word variation along those lines, i guess. but all of that information must be in the letter, and all passports being collected must be on the same letter. to cover bases i prepared a letter with all of them on and one separate one for each. i presented them all and they said that they would not accept separate letters for multiple collections. 

yes, indeed, another selfie for those of you who for some reason are interested in seeing how i am getting on. mostly fine, if you are asking, mostly fine. just a minor (and quite painful) kidney (or similar) infection which laid me out for a bit, but i am sure some sort of transplant or swap would get it all mended. further, or also, yes, that is indeed nelson's column in trafalgar square, rather close to where the sa place for passports is.

something which they do make perfectly, and abundantly clear, is that south african house london (here it is in bold) accepts cash only. do not go thinking you can use a debit or credit card, or a cheque. no, cash only, british pound notes thank you. why is that? lots of reasons, i suppose. officially, i suppose, it is a convenient way for an "emerging" (or developing) nation (think they used to be called third world but you probably can't use that term no more) to hoover up some "emerged" (or developed or first world) nation stable currency. there is another possible reason, which would be how hard cash (unlike cheques, debit and credit card transactions, etc) can be neatly folded or bundled, put in diplomatic bags and taken, no questions asked, to be put in any safe or vault anywhere in the world which a senior member of a ruling government instructs it to be.

how about another look at the quite daunting and very depressing queue which awaits anyone who arrives at south africa house, london, after 6:30am ahead of their 8:45am opening. not to show off, but just to show how frustrating a day it shall be, and why it is a good idea to go armed with absolutely everything you will need in duplicate, triplicate or more.

my hope is that anyone who needs to go (and it would be a need, for no one would endure this simply for fun or giggles) finds all of this and it is of some help. best of luck for those of you off to endure all of the frustration, the lack of assistance, the incompetence and the inefficiency.

no, i am not an sa passport holder, never have been. but my (considerably) better half is, and so i went to collect for her. that feels like some sort of level of commitment or dedication, willing to endure and sacrifice such and to travel so far for it, but it is all probably something that would be assumed and taken quite for granted. oh.

right. that's about it. be ready, be prepared, be lucky.





be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!