The 64-year-old Ms Musandiwa Johannah Mahlangu had finally received her new identity card from Home Affairs after struggling for nearly four years to get her incorrect age changed.
Limpopo Mirror visited Mahlangu at her home in Tshikwarani village, where she expressed her joy. "I am very, very happy now," she said. "The officials from Home Affairs brought my ID card to my home some time ago. The moment I saw my ID card and held it in my hand – oh, I was so overjoyed!"
Mahlangu said that there were some Home Affairs officials who thought that she had been talking negatively about Home Affairs to the media for no apparent reason. "They were all wrong in saying that I hated our government," she said. "All government officials must deliver services to people."
Mahlangu's story was published in Limpopo Mirror several times, after she had claimed that she was "unfairly dismissed" when she went to apply for a change of date of birth in her identity book on December 2012.
Her story had shocked the public when she told Limpopo Mirror on January 2013 that, when she first went to the Makhado office on 5 December 2012, an official allegedly told her that there was no money available for her at SASSA. The said officer had apparently concluded that she was changing her age to gain access to a SASSA grant. "I had wanted my date of birth to be changed, and they told me about the SASSA money," she had said.
After that, Mahlangu had even made a public statement that she was not going to vote because she was not getting any services, but now she is forgiving all the officials who had allegedly wronged her.
"I am forgiving all officials who answered me with disrespect when I first went for a change-of-date-of-birth application at Makhado Home Affairs," she said. "I hope they have learned their lesson from my story and that they will now help other clients on time."