Johannesburg - Nkosinathi and his wife Patricia Dludla on Monday became the first South African parents to receive an unabridged birth certificate for their new baby boy, Sakhile.
Home Affairs Minister Naledi Pandor visited the young couple at Netcare Park Lane Hospital on Monday and officially handed them an unabridged birth certificate for their four-day old son.
Speaking to SAnews at the hospital bed, the delighted mother said: “Being the first mother in the country to receive these new birth certificates, it is a real honour to me. I feel so special.”
The delighted father said this came as a surprise, as he never thought that the birth certificate of his son will be issued at the hospital and on the spot. “I will never forget this exciting experience.”
Pandor also issued another unabridged certificate to Silulami Libalele whose baby girl, Dala was born on Saturday.
“Together with my wife, we are very excited by the department’s move to issue this new birth certificate to our baby without us being travelling to their offices,” said the Silulami adding that his daughter’s name Dala means to create.
The new birth certificates contain details of both parents with added security features that will make it difficult to be duplicated.
According to Pandor, the Department will no longer issue abridged birth certificates to new born babies as part of the effort to secure the integrity of the country’s National Population Register.
“This initiative will really give us a chance of having a national population register that we all trust and which we can use for planning to service provision and all things that government do.
“As from today, all babies will be receiving unabridged certificates and our wish is to issue them on the spot, but at the most it will be within 30 days,” she said.
Minister Pandor said the intention is to eradicate Identity Book theft and fraudulent registration of birth through late registration which is one of the problems that the department wants to rectify.
“If you issue it now, no one will come later with an unabridged certificate and claim to be the father when actually he’s not because there are details of both parents on the certificates.
The initiative forms part of the Department’s commitment to secure the identity and citizenship of its people, improving the service delivery and ultimately becoming a paperless, fully modernised department.
Other benefits of only issuing unabridged birth certificates are that the certificates are issued on the spot, minimise turnaround time and ensure speedy, efficient and accurate service delivery and be more secure and reliable with added information.
The certificates will be issued at no cost to first time applicants. However, the Department said abridged certificates will continue to remain legal documents. - SAnews.gov.za
