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Home Affairs permit processing grinds to a halt

Wed, 12 Jan 2011 14:57

The Department of Home Affairs can provide no timelines as to when the processing of temporary residence and permanent residence applicants will get back to normal.

According to Leon Isaacson, MD of Global Migration SA, the Home Affairs processing of work, study business and other permits has effectively ground to a halt as the backlog of temporary residence and permanent residence applications approaches 30 000.”

This has a marked impact on the economy as Home Affairs issues business and work permits for foreigners who invest and work for investors in South Africa.

”The process used to take 30 days, but now we have applications which are taking 6-8 months work , study and business permits. As far as we can tell, there has been minimal processing of permits judging by the number of applications being finalized".

"The departments has other huge projects like the Zimbabwean issue which ties up resources and they seem to be getting more and more backlogged as the months go on.“

After the World Cup in 2010 there was an upsurge of interest from investors and skilled personnel regarding settling in South Africa, but the Immigration Section at Home Affairs cannot keep up with applications submitted inside South Africa.

” It is rather strange that the Government has not given more attention and resources to this issue as we want more investment and skilled people to set up new businesses in order to employ more South Africans".

"Home Affairs cannot meet its obligations in this regard. It is expected that Home Affairs will be overwhelmed with new challenges this year such as regularization of Zimbabweans as well as other Nationals in South Africa and it is ill equipped to manage as the personnel, technology and infrastructure cannot cope with the current workload.”.

"Even with all of these challenges Home Affairs intends to proposed amendments to the Immigration Legislation which will complicate matters even further by trying to create new categories of permits based on lists, which have yet to be researched, and excluding all Immigration Practitioners from representing applicants".

"The way Home Affairs has worded their proposed amendment, there will be no regulation of Practitioners which will lead to further corruption. There has been no consultation and no one Home Affairs has yet given a clear cohesive, legal reason why they are proposing this.”

According to Isaacson , the Parliamentary Hearings on the New Bill, which will take place from 24-27 January, will elicit representations from a wide range of sources affected by the proposed amendments.

Issues expected to be raised relate to the operational capacity of Home Affairs to manage the change, as well as a number of Constitutional Issues which Home Affairs has obviously not considered yet.

These include the interference in the right of a professional to practice their profession and the right of an individual to use representation in any application, both of which are established in the Constitution and have been upheld by the courts.

For more details contact Global Migration SA