Renewing your ID between the grocery run and the school pickup: that is the vision Home Affairs Minister Dr Leon Schreiber brought to life this week as he officially opened the department’s new office at Centurion Mall in Pretoria — a milestone in the Home Affairs @ home reform programme to make services more accessible, SAnews reports.
While the office has been serving clients since earlier this year, Thursday’s official opening celebrated a bigger idea: that government services should come to where people already live, work and shop, and be delivered in environments that treat citizens with dignity.
Services built around people
“The relocation of the Centurion office to Centurion Mall brings the Home Affairs @ home vision to life. We are bringing services closer to where people already live, work and shop, while ensuring they are delivered in environments that are safe, accessible and worthy of the people we serve,” Minister Schreiber said.
The new office replaces a previous site whose ageing infrastructure and limited facilities had made it harder for staff to deliver the standard of service the community deserves. By contrast, the Department of Home Affairs says the new premises provide an accessible, secure and well-equipped environment that supports more efficient service delivery — and restores dignity to the experience of visiting Home Affairs.
Practical touches matter here: the mall location offers safe surroundings and convenient parking, and the office sits on the Upper Level at Shop 330, within easy reach of commuters and shoppers alike.
Modern front doors, digital back end
Schreiber said the relocation demonstrates how the department is modernising both its physical footprint and the way South Africans access services through digital channels — twin tracks of a reform programme that has seen Home Affairs steadily reinvent the citizen experience.
Notably, the department managed the entire move without interrupting services. The Minister thanked officials and everyone involved in the successful relocation for ensuring uninterrupted service delivery throughout the transition, and for contributing to another milestone in the transformation of Home Affairs.
A pattern of progress
The Centurion opening is part of a broader shift that South Africans are increasingly seeing on the ground: services placed in malls and community hubs, shorter and better-managed queues, and a growing suite of digital options that reduce the need to stand in line at all.
For the people of Centurion and surrounds, the benefit is immediate and tangible — a modern, welcoming Home Affairs office in the heart of their daily routine. For the country, it is another proof point that public services can be delivered with efficiency, care and pride. As the department puts it, this is the Home Affairs @ home vision in action: government meeting people where they are, and serving them well when it gets there.
Photo: Gautrain Centurion Station, commons.wikimedia.org (CC BY-SA)
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