How South Africa’s new visa could work

Businesstech - 16 February 2022

South Africa is considering the adoption of a remote-working visa as part of a push to attract more skilled workers, and their money, to the country.

Remote-working visa are travel permits that legalise the status of travelling professionals. Like tourist visas, they are easy to obtain and do not require long paperwork and a work contract. However, they allow for longer stays.

The Western Cape provincial government has previously mooted the visa, with president Cyril Ramaphosa confirming it is under consideration in his state of the nation address on Thursday evening (10 February).

The move has been welcomed by the City of Cape Town which stands to see significant benefits from the visa.

“Working tourists tend to spend up to R50,000 during their stay, which has the potential to add up to a significant boon for the economy,” said the City of Cape Town’s Mayoral Committee member for economic growth, James Vos.

“This revenue reaches multiple industries, including educational institutions, transport, accommodation, retail, and restaurants.”

Vos said the new visa can be easily introduced through an amendment to Section 11 of the Immigration Act, which relates to an extension of visas beyond 90 days for specific activities. This is because remote workers tend to stay beyond three months in a location, he said.

The application can be authorised by a ministerial directive while applying regulations already in place and governing visitors’ visa applications, he said.

At present, these visa applicants must show:

• Control of sufficient financial resources (by means of a bank statement);
• Proof of accommodation and medical insurance for the duration of their stay;
• A medical certificate, radiological report, and police clearances.

The remote working visa will additionally:

• Require an applicant to provide evidence of employment abroad, as well as a sufficient income from such employment or own business registered abroad;
• Allow the applicant’s dependants to accompany them.

“South Africa has long been a global tourist hotspot. By showing that we also have the means for people to work while they’re here, we entice them to stay longer,” said Vos.

“I will also begin engagements with industry bodies such as CTT and the Federated Hospitality Association of South Africa (Fedhasa) to get the ball rolling on creating specific product and pricing categories that cater to this specific market so that Cape Town remains top of mind for these travellers.”

Attracting skilled workers 

Ramaphosa said that attracting skilled workers was a key focus of his government’s plans to rebuild the economy.

“The world over, the ability to attract skilled immigrants is the hallmark of a modern, thriving economy. We are therefore streamlining and modernising the visa application process to make it easier to travel to South Africa for tourism, business and work,” he said in his state of the nation address.

“A comprehensive review of the work visa system is currently underway, led by a former director-general of Home Affairs, Mavuso Msimang. This review is exploring the possibility of new visa categories that could enable economic growth, such as a start-up visa and a remote working visa.”

Ramaphosa noted that the government has also published a revised critical skills list for the first time since 2014, following detailed technical work and extensive consultations with business and labour.

www.samigration.com

Home Affairs hiring 10,000 IT graduates

16  February 2022 – Mybroadband

 

The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) will appoint 10,000 young IT workers to help speed up the digitisation of its paper records over the next few years.

President Cyril Ramaphosa mentioned the recruitment drive during his State of the Nation address on Thursday, 10 February 2022.

It forms part of an extension of the Presidential Employment Stimulus programme.

According to Ramaphosa, this programme has thus far supported over 850,000 work opportunities, primarily for young people and women.

“This includes over half a million young people appointed as education assistants, making it the largest youth employment programme ever undertaken in our history,” Ramaphosa stated.

The Presidency provides a detailed dashboard on the overall achievements of the programme to date, including its budget and the number of beneficiaries that have been assisted.

So far, a total of R23.6 billion in funding was allocated over two phases, with more than 673,514 jobs created, 40,399 of which were retained.

One of the next important roles of the employment stimulus is to enable the DHA to recruit 10,000 unemployed young people to digitise its paper records.

Ramaphosa said this would enhance their skills and see them contributing to the modernisation of citizen services.

President Cyril Ramaphosa (left) and Aaron Motsoaledi, Minister of Home Affairs (right)

Home Affairs minister Aaron Motsoaledi told eNCA the first group of employees would begin their work from May 2022.

The full complement of 10,000 employees would gradually be brought on board in the months after that.

The DHA started the process to digitise over 280 million records in 2016. These include births, deaths, lineage, ID, passports, and migration, dating back to 1895.

That number has since grown to over 300 million records.

Because of the sheer volume of data, the process was taking too long, Motsoaledi explained.

“Sars was doing the digitisation, but unfortunately, we only had a budget to do 5 million per year,” he stated. “At that rate, we were going to take 60 years to get digitised.”

Motsoaledi reiterated that the recruits would be young people with qualifications in IT, either from a university or TVET college.

“They will know what they are doing,” he stated.

As a result, he expected the project could be finished within 24 to 36 months, depending on the budget granted by National Treasury.

Recruitment process

The minister has also assured that the recruiting process would be above board.

“There are going to be no favours, no corruption, no crony-ism or any of the things that people used to complain about,” he stated.

DHA will be taking applications from all nine of the country’s provinces, and many of the workers will be staying in their own provinces.

“They will be earning a stipend which is quite good, I must say, but we don’t want them to waste that money looking for accommodation, transport, etc.,” Motsoaledi stated.

The minister said a press conference this week would provide more details on the requirements and application process.

www.samigration.com

Home affairs stuck in costly legal limbo, worsened by Covid

15 Fe

bruary 2022 - businesslive

 

The Covid-19 pandemic has proven to be yet another stick in the spokes for the department of home affairs, further delaying processes that were already slow and inconsistent, and causing despair and disruption for thousands of people and businesses. In addition, an apparent lack of will to rectify the situation is costing the state millions in unnecessary legal fees as unsuccessful applicants head to the courts to appeal.

For years our practice has noted that SA loses skills, business capital and jobs by apparently regarding all foreigners with suspicion, making visa, residency and citizenship applications a complex nightmare that deters foreigners. The pandemic has worsened the problem. Indeed, it would appear that the department is not well equipped to adapt to change: in 2010, when adjudication was centralised to a hub, services collapsed. In 2014, when the law changed, we saw more court cases and further delays. Covid has forced significant change across society and the economy, and again services have ground to a halt.

Racking up costs to the state

As we warned  in 2021, the pandemic has further delayed and derailed immigration processes and caused a backlog that could take years to clear – particularly in permanent residence and citizenship-related services. We have noted an increase in rejections of critical skills visa applications, freelance work applications by foreign spouses of South Africans, and work authorisations for foreigners with a retired persons visa.

This situation has not changed, forcing applicants to go to court to appeal against their rejections. These cases may be escalated several times — each time at a legal cost to the state. As a seasoned immigration expert I have never litigated so much in my life as I have in recent years. In most cases a court case relates to a delay, which is easy to prove and results in the state losing, with cost orders against it.

One gets the impression that the state often appeals as a delaying tactic. With the services of an attorney and a junior advocate costing anywhere from R30,000 to R200,000 per case — before the case has even been referred to the Supreme Court or Constitutional Court — these delays can cost the state a substantial amount.

Exactly how much this may be costing is difficult to pinpoint. According to the department’s 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 annual reports immigration affairs management is the third programme within the department of home affairs.  The line item for legal services records that in 2018-2019 it spent about R32m on legal services, and in 2019-2020 R43m. Unfortunately, there is no further information on how exactly this total is broken down. Both years also record some R2bn in contingent legal liabilities, but “contingent” means the liability may not occur. In other words, the department is being sued for R2bn, but those suits have not yet been concluded.

There is a statement that “claims in immigration services arise mainly from the unlawful arrest and detention of illegal foreigners, and damages arising from the department’s failure to make timely decisions on visas and permits. Of the total claims, 11 major claims (R5m and above) amounting to R696m, reside under the branch.”  But this may refer to damages, not legal costs, and such damages claims are likely to fail.

Home Affairs at a standstill

Efficiency and consistency would clearly be a more cost-effective approach, yet home affairs remains at a standstill, even though the wheels of business are starting to turn again. Thousands of people have been in limbo for about a year as they await outcomes.

Among our clients is a German film director and corporate general manager who has applied for a critical skills work visa and is experiencing lengthy delays in the process. This businessman has companies in SA with the capacity to create jobs and drive investment into the country. On top of this, he has invested over R5m in NGOs and NPOs benefiting children.

Another client is a Ghanaian ICT professional who studied in SA and has applied for a critical skills work visa. He has been informed his application was rejected because he is on a visa restricted “V List”, while simultaneously another home affairs division states that he is not on the V List.

Home affairs recognised in its 2021 budget  that “the  timeous issuing  of  permits and visas enables economic growth and removes impediments to foreign investment” and said it aimed to maintain the percentage of business  and general work visa applications per year that are adjudicated within eight weeks at 90% over the medium term, and targeted an increase in the  percentage of critical skills visa applications per year adjudicated within four weeks from 82% in 2021/2022 to 95% in 2023/2024. 

The department also recently announced that it was resuming the processing of applications for permanent residency after a hiatus of nearly two years and an estimated backlog of up to 50,000 applications. It is commendable that the department recognises that there is a problem, but it should be noted that service delivery cannot be achieved when offices are closed or manned by a skeleton staff, and that rushing through adjudication is not enough: adjudication needs to be done consistently, fairly, and in line with the relevant acts.

By improving efficiencies and eliminating poor and inconsistent processing of immigration and work visas the department of home affairs could not only slash the costs and time wasted in legal challenges; it could also support the government’s efforts to encourage foreign investment and create more jobs.

www.samigration.com

 

 

 

Bribery and corruption: an inside look at the dealings between some Home Affairs officials and foreign nationals

Weekend Argus -  11 February 2022

Cape Town - For as little as R300 you can buy safe passage into the country as corruption and greed permeates South Africa’s border control.

The Department of Home Affairs has confirmed it takes just a few hundred rands as desperate and corrupt officials accept bribes from foreign nationals that need various documents.

Documents like citizenship and asylum papers can go for up to R200 000 but the Department of Home Affairs warned against the practice.

After a series of corrupt officials were arrested last week, Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said: “If you are conducting your illegal operation at the Department of Home Affairs, law enforcement is coming for you. You are going to face the full might of the law.”

Motsoaledi said they were hot on the trail of corrupt officials and that undercover teams, along with the Hawks would unearth the corrupt.

Two weeks ago, the Bellville Specialised Commercial Crimes Court convicted former Home Affairs Official Joseph Lebitsa on eight counts of corruption. Three more officials were arrested in Ermelo, for demanding money from foreign nationals who run businesses in the town.

“Some of these officials allegedly took as little as R300 to allow people to enter the country without proper documents. To me, this is not just crime or corruption, but it is an absolute disgrace and an act of treason against one’s country.”

Weekend Argus spoke to a foreign national from Pakistan, who agreed to talk anonymously.

“If new people come, they can charge up to R200 000 and the money is given to immigration people and they share it.

“There is someone who has a connection with Home Affairs at the airport. They bring the people from outside and the money is given to immigration and they release the people to come into South Africa without papers.”

A police officer, who cannot be identified, said often the game would be given away when the system would be updated in minutes after the foreigner had supposedly crossed the border.

“Foreign national comes here for a study or holiday visa, he hides his passport away and gets an asylum (document). When he goes back to his country, he jumps the border and pays the official who lets him go through and stamps his passport. When you have a permit like that in your passport, you need to have multiple entries to extend it.

“When he arrives at the airport, their system will show this man did obey by the rules and regulations and where we pick it up is our data, it shows a foreigner going over the border and getting stamped out and 10, 20 minutes later he is stamped back in again.”

“There was a list of Home Affairs officials’ stamps that was stolen. Each official at Home Affairs is issued with a date stamp. Each date stamp has a number at the bottom right hand corner, for example 32 would belong to a certain staff member. That is how stamps are traced to a specific official.

“During a joint operation, stamps were found in possession of foreigners which were used to extend people’s asylum.”

An official at Home Affairs said only their staff were skilled to determine whether a document was fake or not.

He said it depended on details such as the font, watermark or fake reference numbers, which would give the game away.

He added corruption was so rife, that a low-income clerk would accept payment to high-ranking officials, making sure they had regular customers.

“Pakistanis will call an official, they are legal but they want citizenship as soon as possible. They just buy it from officials, they get corrupted because they are offered money, like R70 000 and R90 000, R100 000, when they are approached in top levels.

“He asks the corrupter how long do you want to stay here, then he puts down a date for his prerogative. He chooses a date, but they become greedy and careless and they extend it beyond the date of expiry.

Institute for Security Studies migration expert, Aimee-Noel Mobiyozo said the blame did not only fall on foreign nationals but Home Affairs.

“If the document fraud is for South African documents, this implies people within Home Affairs are involved. This is consistent with our past research that has consistently demonstrated that corruption is rife within Home Affairs.

“Cape Town closed its refugee reception office in 2012. This was ruled illegal and Home Affairs was ordered to re-open the office in 2018.

“This has not happened to date and it means that people requiring documents are struggling more than ever to access them legally.”

www.samigration

 

 

 

South Africa to investigate foreigners with permits in February

10-02- 2022 – Zimbabwe Mail

The South Africa Department of Home Affairs will begin a Citizen Authentication System  which is set to verify permits and Visas issued to foreigners since 2004.

The operation is aimed at fishing out individuals who fraudulently acquired permits to stay in the country.

The Home Affairs Minister Aaaron Motsoaledi said the need to review the permits came after realising a trend emerging from the outcomes of cases involving prominent people investigated by the Department’s Counter Corruption Unit, which investigates wrongdoing by departmental officials.

“In November 2020, during a high-powered investigation, I was alarmed when 14 members of the permitting section signed a petition demanding that the Counter Corruption unit should stop investigating their errors. This admission strengthened my resolve to have a more transparent permit issuance regime.” He said.

www.samigration.com