Our Viewpoint | Home affairs glitches

In the final months of her life, an elderly woman battling diabetes was forced to spend what little strength she had trying to prove that she was alive. Not to live better, but simply to exist on paper. It is hard to ignore the tragic, bitter irony in the story in Monday’s paper, of Bongekile Margaret Mthethwa, who died in December 2025 after more than a year of emotional distress and deteriorating health, believed to have been caused by the sudden termination of her old-age pension in November 2024.

Her pension was halted after a clerical error declared her dead on Home Affairs’ system. She spent the last year of her life fighting to reclaim her identity and her pension. Yet even in death, the struggle did not end.

Without a valid identity document, her family was unable to obtain a death certificate. Without it, there could be no funeral policy payout. Grief was compounded by debt and the cruelty of a system that could not correct its own mistake.

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This is not an isolated failure.The Witnesshas reported for years on similar cases: people pronounced dead by the system, married to strangers, stripped of their identities or forced into months, even years, of limbo while waiting for errors to be corrected. Often, it takes sustained media pressure and relentless follow-ups before justice is done. Every month a fix is delayed is another month without a pension or grant.

Another month without access to formal employment. Another month where basic rights we take for granted — opening a bank account, writing matric, accessing healthcare — are denied. These stories may have become familiar in our pages, but their impact is extraordinary and anything but routine.

An ID document is not just a piece of paper; it is a ticket to life. When it is stolen, corrupted or mishandled, livelihoods unravel. Home Affairs must do better in addressing these glitches timeously. Its systems must urgently be tightened to withstand these threats and function with the understanding that they do not process numbers, but human lives.

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