The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) has set its sights on transforming South Africa into a business destination of choice, with Minister Leon Schreiber announcing towards the end of 2024 five immigration service targets for 2025. These objectives are designed to ensure the timely processing of visa applications and effective inspections in targeted areas.
Read more: Hell Affairs
The five targets are:
- Permanent residence applications: The DHA aims to adjudicate 85% of permanent residence applications for critical skills, general work and business visa holders within eight months. Currently, processing times can extend from eight months to two years.
- Critical skills visa applications: The target is to process 95% of critical skills visa applications submitted from South Africa within four weeks, significantly reducing the current maximum wait time of up to one year.
- Business visa applications: The DHA plans to adjudicate 90% of business visa applications made in South Africa within eight weeks, down from a current maximum wait time that could take as long as a year.
- General work visa applications: Similar to business visas, the goal is to adjudicate 90% of general work visa applications within eight weeks, again aiming to cut down the existing wait time of up to a year.
- Inspections: 2,000 law enforcement operations will be conducted in targeted areas, including spaza shops, transport and logistics companies, farms, mines and restaurants to ensure compliance with the Immigration Act of 2002.
These targets aim to address the significant backlogs in visa applications and inspections, which have impacted the legal status and employment of foreign nationals in South Africa. The DHA aims to speed up disciplinary action, with the aim of resolving 70% of existing misconduct cases and 80% of reported fraud and corruption cases within 90 working days.
In response to queries about the progress of these targets, the minister’s spokesperson Duwayne Esau said, “These targets are for the entire financial year. The department will compile a report on how much of this was achieved at the end of the financial year.”
Imraan Mahomed, director at Employment Law practice at Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, hailed the targets as a positive move and steps in the right direction, saying that if the targets could be achieved, it would certainly be positive for the country and alleviate the frustrations of visa applications.
The DHA also plans to speed up disciplinary action. The intention is to finalise 70% of existing misconduct cases and 80% of reported fraud and corruption cases within 90 working days.
“Whilst laudable, this will only be achieved where the DHA as an employer takes decisive steps to decriminalise its internal disciplinary processes, is robust with employees and unions who unnecessarily delay the internal processes; and has sufficient internal capacity to clear out the backlog of cases,” Mahomed said.
Mahomed said the Department of Labour, in conjunction with Home Affairs, would conduct inspections to determine compliance with the Immigration Act of 2002.
“What they would require from an employer is a list of employees to confirm that they’ve got the necessary work permits to be employed by the particular company… we’ve seen examples of that and now the static intention is to have 2,000 of those (inspections) over the course of this year, which is a significant amount.”
‘A very frustrating process’
Mahomed said companies faced frustration when trying to bring skilled workers into South Africa. “The process in order to obtain a permit or a visa to work in South Africa is best described as very frustrating … it’s no secret that the process is phenomenally long.”
“There are time periods that are set, but never properly complied with. There are no responses from Home Affairs. It’s a very frustrating process because you kind of fall into a black hole, so that’s the system in Home Affairs that’s been around for, unfortunately, a good couple of years now,” he told Daily Maverick.
He said this frustration could lead to companies shifting their resources, as they could not afford to wait indefinitely. “It’s phenomenally frustrating for businesses when they want to bring skills into South Africa,” Mahomed said.
With so much uncertainty about how long the process will take, it is difficult to be confident that potential staff will qualify for a particular visa.
Read more: How some South Africans get discriminated against by Home Affairs
Mahomed emphasised the importance of efficient processing of visa applications, noting that delays could have severe consequences for businesses. “If businesses do not get assistance on time and face the frustration of long waits, they will simply relocate those resources and skills.”
Immigration under scrutiny
However, not everyone is convinced of the government’s commitment to addressing immigration. Speaking to Sky News on 6 January 2025 Nomzamo Zondo, human rights attorney and executive director of the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa, questioned the government’s seriousness in dealing with immigration.
Zondo emphasised the importance of ensuring that foreign nationals were regularised and contributed to the economy. “The call has to be one that says once you are here, how do we make sure you are regularised here, that we know who you are, and (how you) contribute to the economy at this point in time,” she said. DM