A cable connecting the department of home affairs to the State Information Technology Agency (SITA) has broken, causing all its systems to go offline nationwide and leaving the public stranded.
Technicians are attending to the problem, the department said in a statement, but in the meantime services remain limited to passport collections and death certificates.
These certificates will be written out by hand for burial purposes with computerised certificates to be issued when the system is back online.
The department is waiting for Sita to give an estimated time when the system will be online again.
This setback could exacerbate the backlog at Home Affairs in processing applications of asylum seekers, which worsened during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Foreign workers are also stressed when applying for, or renewing, work visas and permits at the department, with the backlog of work permits leaving legal immigrants feeling trapped. President Cyril Ramaphosa said in the state of the nation address in February former director-general of home affairs Mavuso Msimang is leading a review of the work visa system.
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