Dear Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs,

Please could you kindly assist me through your office and the relevant Officials in your Department with a problem I have in obtaining my unabridged marriage certificate from the Department of Home Affairs.

I applied for my unabridged marriage certificate on the 15 February 2019 (almost a year ago) at the Randburg Home Affairs Office. After submitting my application the Home Affairs Official requested a copy of my BI-30 form, however herein lies my dilemma that I need assistance with:

When I got married in 2001 the marriage registers used during the time only had two copies of the BI-30 form (one which was kept in the register by the marriage officer, in our case a Priest, and another one that was submitted to Home Affairs to formally register our marriage). Unfortunately the Priest that married us moved away from St Thomas' Anglican Church in Linden and took his marriage register with him, therefore the church does not have the BI-30 form that is in the register. I managed to track him down, but unfortunately it was too late as he has subsequently passed away and upon tracking down his children to find the marriage register, they duly informed me that it was not between his belongings that they had gone through after his death.

Although the Home Affairs Officials at the Randburg Home Affairs Office submitted an application for the BI-30 copy to be retrieved from the archives, I was also informed (by the various Home Affairs Officials that I have been in contact with) that obtaining the BI-30 copy, which was submitted to Home Affairs when we got married in 2001, is also problematic due to a fire that destroyed archived documents at Home Affairs.

Therefore I am now at a desperate empasse- despite phoning the Randburg Home Affairs on a weekly basis and visiting the offices in person, the Officials that answer the phones and who I speak to at the Home Affairs Office just say that they can't help me with my situation and either disconnect the calls or ask me to leave without being assisted. I have also tried to contact various different Managers within Home Affairs and at the Randburg Home Affairs to plead for assistance but to no avail. Everyone is saying that it is not possible for me to obtain my unabridged marriage certificate without a copy of the BI-30, but it is now also obvious that the two copies of the BI-30 form are no longer in existence, therefore I am now on the verge of breaking down into tears and don't know what to do or where to turn.

Your and your team's assistance to help with a way forward and a resolution to the matter is highly appreciated. If you or anyone in your office require any further information from me, please do not hesitate to contact me at 083 559 2705 or at deedsloveslife@gmail.com.
My ID number is 720818 0191 084.

Kind Regards

Deirdre Lister
083 559 2705