EWN reports that the Public Servants Association of SA (PSA) has condemned a suggestion by Parliament's home affairs portfolio committee to ban cellphone use during working hours at the front desks at the Department of Home Affairs.  

According to the committee, staff were not concentrating on their work because they were distracted by their phones and this left a bad impression, especially at ports of entry.  Committee chair Hlomane Chauke pointed out that the department had failed to heed a request last year to draft a policy which would give effect to a cellphone ban.  “It cannot be accepted that people will leave their duties and be busy with their private matters without even apologising.  If you look at the current video that is trending, they don’t even apologise [or] care.  And the members of the public are sitting there watching these officials busy with cellphones.”  Chauke was referring to an incident in Tongaat, KwaZulu-Natal, where a viral video on social media of two home affairs officials was taken showing them using their cellphones on duty while people waited in a queue.  But the PSA, as the majority union at the department, called on the committee to refrain from making reckless statements that provoked unnecessarily crippling shutdowns through strikes.  

• Read the original of Lindsay Dentlinger’s report on this story at EWN

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