25 February 2025 by Pascalinah Kabi

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Queen Mamohato Memorial Hospital (QMMH) has sounded the alarm, revealing that children in desperate need of life-saving treatment in South Africa are being pushed to the brink of death due to the Department of Home Affairs’ failure to issue birth certificates.

“We currently have patients in the ward who need referral to cancer and heart surgery units that have been waiting for over two weeks,” read a February 11, 2025, letter signed by Dr Benjamin Ngoie, QMMH’s Deputy Managing Director Clinical Services.

“For the past month the Home Affairs department has not been able to process birth certificates and therefore travel documents for our patients with negative (catastrophic) outcomes.”

Based on the date of this letter, it means that these children have been waiting to travel to South Africa since before January 27, 2025.

‘Marelebohile Mothibeli, Public Relations Officer for the Ministry of Local Government, Chieftainship, Home Affairs, and Police, told Uncensored News that the Department of Home Affairs has been unable to issue birth certificates since December 2024 due to technical problems.

“The birth certificate system is experiencing a technical problem just as the ID system experienced faced a challenge, but the issue is being addressed. The ministry has not suspended issuance of birth certificates; applications are being processed, and applicants’ details will be loaded into our system for printing once operational,” Mothibeli said during a 10:44 am telephonic interview on February 14, 2025.

Fulfilling her promise to provide an update before the end of February 24, 2025, she reported progress in resolving the technical issues, with an unspecified number of birth certificates printed that day.

“We cannot say it’s fully operational, but progress has been made. For the first time since December, they were able to print birth certificates today (February 24, 2025),” Mothibeli said.

Mothibeli, however, said: “I am not aware of the Tšepong (QMMH) letter.”

Meanwhile, the letter, seen by Uncensored News, was sent to the Department of Home Affairs to highlight the life-threatening consequences of birth certificate delays for critically ill children requiring specialised care.

According to the letter, QMMH’s paediatrics department is facing a crisis, as the hospital cannot refer critically ill children to Universitas Hospital in the Free State, South Africa.

“For a patient to be accepted across for admission, they first need to have travel documentation or at the very least a birth certificate,” Dr. Ngoie said.

Dr. Ngoie emphasised that without a birth certificate, critically ill children cannot be admitted to specialised medical and surgical units in South Africa.

He further explained that the hospital’s paediatric department frequently refers newborn babies for emergency care, making timely access to birth certificates crucial for saving lives.

QMMH public relations officer Thakane Mapeshoane had not responded to Uncensored News’ questions at the time of publication.

Meanwhile, Uncensored News has learned that the non-issuance of national identity documents—including birth certificates, national identity cards, and passports—stems from the government’s decision in 2024 to terminate a controversial deal with Israel’s Nikuv International Projects.

“The delays have nothing to do with a technical glitch but everything to do with the government’s decision to terminate the Nikuv contract without a solid, finalised, and signed agreement with the new service provider,” a source told Uncensored News.

Another source said: “It is now an open secret here (Home Affairs) that the decision to terminate the Nikuv contract was poorly calculated. They should have waited to sign a contract with the new service provider before ending the existing one.”

Nikuv was controversially awarded a lucrative contract in 2012 to computerise Lesotho’s border control system and produce electronic passports, birth and death certificates, and national identity documents (IDs) without going through the required open public tender process.

In November 2013, then-Principal Secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Retšelisitsoe Khetsi, was charged with bribery and corruption for allegedly accepting M5 million from Nikuv to influence the awarding of the M300 million tender.

Prime Minister Sam Matekane confirmed the contract termination during a press conference in September 2024 following the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) summit.

 “We told them that since they had many contracts with the government of Lesotho, we specifically wanted termination of the contract related to passports and IDs and we all agreed. The contract was terminated,” Matekane was quoted by the Lesotho Times saying.

The paper said Matekane promised the prolonged crisis would soon be resolved, assuring that the government had taken “advanced steps to overcome it.”

“We started this new journey of going directly to the company that manufactures passports. These issues take time, and they have taken a lot of time. Right now, we can get passports directly from the manufacture without a go-between company.”

“The people who manufacture the passports and IDs are not only focusing on us. They have a lot of work. So, we are trying to see if, perhaps if we can have two companies that manufacture passports and IDs for us, then things will be okay.” 

Yet, despite the Prime Minister’s assurances, five months later, children in need of critical care in South Africa remain stranded due to the lack of birth certificates.