Cruel home affairs supervisor

I need to speak about a horrible incident we experienced on the 5th January 2021 at home affairs Akasia. My wife who is in her 9th month pregnant and only a few days away from giving birth was treat with disrespect, humiliated and made to suffer at the offices by the supervisor. Like I said, my wife is 9 months pregnant, she can barely walk around at this point and is a high risk pregnancy since she is 42. We had come to the office to pick up her new ID document with her new marital surname. We need her new ID for the registration of our new baby. It wasn’t that we were coming late to pick up her ID, this was the 5th time we were at the offices. 3 times there was an issue (servers down, cable theft and closed due to covid-19 infection.). We come from over 50 Km away so it is a long trip for pregnant woman and we cannot always get there. This was our last chance to come and get her ID. So you know the rule put down by the president, when there are queues: allow the old, pregnant or those with comorbidities to the front during this covid crisis. I believe it was a recommendation even before covid to help those who are need first.

In anycase, the first time we came to the office to apply for her ID, she was maybe 5-6 months pregnant, We were helped and she was brought to the front and assisted without hassle. She was still pregnant and sore but she could still walk around without too much pain, but standing for too long was still an issue. Now at 9 months, she is way more uncomfortable, In pain all over and has massive pelvic pain. We come to the office yesterday to just collect her ID, something that should be quick and fast. More so this time she should be allowed to come to the front due to being highly pregnant with comorbidities. We get to the front and a security guard tells us it is fine, we sign in and he takes her temperature. He tells us we should just wait for the supervisor to come and he will help us right away. The supervisor Mantake Masemola, comes out and asks for 10 more people for collection to come inside. We and even the security guard try desperately to speak to him as he gathers people, he completely ignores us. Right at the last moment we get his attention and he is irritated. He tells us to go back to the line and points to the chair in the front. We do this and stand in front of the line waiting. Then Mantake Masemola comes back out again and say one more person can come in, we think it is for us. My wife walks ahead and Mantake Masemola says to her “No not you, the person behind you.” My wife then asks the person if she can please go and the person said it was fine but Mantake Masemola insisted an refused my wife completely, there was a bit of a back an forth at this point as the person let my wife go inside. The other security guard also told my wife to go inside to wait in the line to see the consultant about collecting her ID. The other security guard told me to stand outside(which didn’t make sense since there were many people inside with partners). While my wife is inside she had to stand in a line to get register and get a reference. She had to be on her feet for 20-30 minutes while, she was already in pain. While I’m outside waiting and looking at her, Mantake Masemola tells me while I’m outside that they won’t help her when she get to the consultant, they very busy, she is wasting her time. I didn’t understand since it is the very same line as everyone else is standing in and they getting helped. I said, she just her for collection, why won’t they help her. he just said they won’t help her.

She gets to the front to the line to the consultant finally and Mantake Masemola walks up to the consultant and say to her that she will not help my wife. At this point we are begging him to just help my wife, she just needs to collect her ID. We ask the consultant and she says he is the boss, she won’t help. He refuses and makes it clear to everyone that my wife will not be help. I ask is there anyone else in charge here that I can talk to and the consultant said, that him, Mantake Masemola is the big cheese here. My wife begs and even asks people in the line if they mind that she can get her ID and everyone is silent because they don’t want to get involved. My wife begged Mantake Masemola and he couldn’t care less, he told her to go outside and get at the back of the line. I have never seen someone act so cruelly to a pregnant woman and on purpose make things worse for her. We had to wait for the next line to come in with new people until there was no more line outside, he had put us at the back on the line. No amount of begging could change Mantake Masemola mind, he on purpose decided that this pregnant woman will not be helped and even delayed us more than a normal person. Only once we were at the back of the queue would the consultant help us.

We ended up sitting over 3 hours in Akasia home affairs, just to collect an ID. I’m guessing 3 hours isn’t bad for a normal person but it hurt every step of the way for a 9 month pregnant woman. Mantake Masemola made it his mission to make it difficult for a pregnant woman. During the whole ordeal my wife was in extreme pain, physical and Emotional. She was humiliated and made a fool of Infront of everyone. After we were done, my wife couldn’t even walk out of the office from the pain she was in and I had to help her every step of the way out. The whole incident even made my wife have cramping pains the whole night that we almost went to the hospital. I don’t know what Mantake Masemola gained by making a 9 month pregnant woman suffer. In the first place, she should have been helped first due to being pregnant, second she was shamed and made to wait even longer than a normal person would have. This was the worst experience we both have ever had at a home affairs, and to think that a few months back at the very same office gladly helped a pregnant woman. Even the president said we should all have more care to those at risk. What this man Mantake Masemola did with his power was shameful, arrogant and unspeakable. I don’t know how he sleeps at night. We will never in our lives go back to Akasia home affairs. Mantake Masemola needs to know what he did was wrong.