Visa chaos in South Africa finally getting focus
Home Affairs is holding back skilled immigrants from working in South Africa, but the government is starting to take action, says Busi Mavuso, the CEO of Businesses Leadership South Africa (BLSA).
Writing in her weekly newsletter, the CEO said that the current visa regime makes it more difficult for businesses to expand their operations.
The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) is notorious for long waiting times and maladministration.
Some people have been waiting over six months to receive a work visa, and many families have been split when one spouse is able to get a visa, but their children have to wait longer.
“Foreign companies cannot commit to major investments in South Africa when they cannot be confident that they can send their top people into the country,” Mavuso said.
South Africa aims to be the gateway into Africa, drawing multinational companies to base their regional headquarters there; however, this has proven difficult, as the companies struggle to station skilled leadership.
Locally skilled workers are heading in the opposite direction, with the department reporting a significant outflow of skills. By 2020, it is estimated that over 900,000 workers have left South Africa for the UK and Australia, among other countries.
Following consistent concern and inquiries over the failings of the Department of Home Affairs, President Cyril Ramaphosa has pressed the issue, pledging to overhaul the visa regime.
Earlier this month, Operation Vulindlela, the joint initiative between the Presidency and National Treasury to drive policy implementation, published a detailed report on visas with good recommendations on how to improve the regime, said Mavuso.
This was immediately followed by the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) setting out an implementation plan to ensure the recommendations are adopted, she added.
The report detailed the economic benefits of skilled immigration and outlined the incredibly cumbersome visa application process hampering South Africa’s draw.
“Many of the requirements are incredibly difficult to meet, including that a police clearance certificate must be produced for every country the applicant has lived in for more than 12 months since they were 18.”
“Many countries require in-person applications for police clearance certificates. Just imagine how that requirement would go down with a banking executive who has worked in group businesses across a dozen countries, which is exactly the kind of regional business leaders we should be trying to attract,” said the CEO.
Recommendations made under the report include, but are not limited to:
- Improving efficiencies
- Streamlining documentation and adjudication processes
- Modernising and automating the IT systems
- Increasing capacity at immigration branches
Mavuso said the most important recommendations are on the policy front.
“Chief among these is a trusted employer scheme, under which approved employers would have access to a simplified route to bring in skilled employees with the burden for much of the administration placed on the employer – such as qualifications and criminal record checks, the kinds of things employers are doing anyway.”
“This could radically improve the experience of major multinationals. The report also recommends the introduction of a points-based visa system to integrate multiple visa categories and improve the objectivity of visa decisions, enabling highly skilled and well-paid workers to enter the country more easily,” she said.
“The report also recommends new categories for remote workers and for start-ups to attract the best global talent,” Mavuso added.
Mavuso said that these are excellent improvements, and some of them will be implemented by the department within 30 days, though deeper system upgrades would take up to two years.
She said, however, that, despite these being major steps forward, improvement still ultimately depends on bureaucratic decision-making – both in maintaining scarce skills lists and in processing applications.
Mavuso said that BLSA advocates for more freedom being granted to companies to determine their own skills requirements with incentives to hire local employees driven by ‘cost differential rather than bureaucratic fiat’.
New visas
The DHA, in its latest annual performance plan for 2023/24, said that it is determined to develop new visa categories, including start-up visas and remote working visas.
According to the department, it intends to have specific requirements for remote work visas and start-up visas detailed in three months’ time.
The department said that in order to achieve this goal, they will need to make changes to regulations 11 and 14 of the Immigration Regulations within a three-month period.
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