I got married at the department of Home affairs Regional office here in P.E

& on 21-12-2009 we submitted an application form for Accompany Spouse permit with all our documents at the Regional office & was given a date 01-03-2010 for an interview.

Our file number was quoted on the Acknowledgement Receipt as (PE.1636/2009/TRP).We did go for the interview on that stipulated date & we were then told that someone will be visiting our home just to do a routine check up & nobody ever did come to our house to visit. My husband was told to produce the acknowledgment receipt as proof that he is married to a S.A Citizen if anyone should need a permit from him starting that day onwards which he did. So my husband stopped going to the refugee’s office to renew his permit every month because he always kept the proof wherever he went.


We kept visiting the home affairs department 2010 regularly to check on our application progress & each time we went we had to queue long queues only to be told that our application is still pending.

This carried on for almost 3-4 months & on the 27-05-2010 I gave birth to our first born & Beginning of July when my daughter was 1 month old we visited the home affairs department again & was still told that our application was pending & this time we demanded to speak to the head of the department who told us that our file was missing & requested us to re- submit a new application, with all the other documents This time she said we should include our daughter’s birth certificate. We were very upset but also desperate because my husband wanted us to go visit his parents in Ghana to show them the baby, so we did just about everything they had asked us to do. January 2011 my husband got tired of dealing with the people in P.E because they kept telling us that the hold up was from Head quarters in Pretoria, so he phoned Pretoria & was again told to fax all the documents that he had to the head quarters which he did & at this time we were given case no. (113027907) Reference no. (0102010771) for follow up. We have been phoning & phoning & every time we are told to call again after 2 weeks…No one can ever tell us why this permit not be processed, no reasons whatsoever! Why are they doing this to us, we would at least be happy, even if his application was to be rejected, at least they would provide us with reasons why it was rejected so we could also know & do something about whatever the problem is.


My husband is a qualified computer technician who wants to provide for his family, he can’t do so because by law he is an illegal immigrant in this country & cannot not be employed by any company.

We have done everything by the book, but we do not understand why he can’t get his permit. Our daughter will be turning 1yr on 27-05-2011 & I worry everyday that one day he will be told to pack his bags & go home or be arrested for not having a valid permit.


We can understand that there are a lot of applications that the department deals with everyday, but surely a permit application cannot take this long, there must be something wrong somewhere.

Please help us as we had gone through all the channels & still are not being assisted..My email : [email protected]