Sunday Times<\/a> from the state attorney\u2019s office to the Department of Home Affairs revealed the backlog was now sitting at over 95,000 applications.<\/p>\n\n\n\nOf these 95,000, the backlog in temporary residency visas has remained unchanged at over 74,309 since the department\u2019s last report at the end of October 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This pressured the minister, Aaron Motsoaledi, to extend the time frame to fix the backlog, which has been pushed back from June 2024 to November 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, in his latest response, Motsoaledi said the department is not deliberately delaying the processing of such visas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although there are several reasons for the backlog, Motsoaledi noted that approximately 86% of the temporary residence visa backlog consists of “relationship visas”, and a concerning amount of them are fraudulent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The department is experiencing significant and ever-increasing challenges with regards to the legitimacy of relationships being claimed or cited as a reason for applying for these visas,” he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Some foreign nationals have taken advantage and get into corruption to legitimise themselves, family members, friends and others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The number of fraudulent marriages, marriages of convenience and a special category of cohabitation are unfortunately on the increase,” he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The minister explained that marriages of convenience are the largest category.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is when the couple agrees to get legitimately married, where one person (usually a foreign man) pays money to the other (usually a South African woman) in return for getting documents to sojourn in South Africa via marriage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The category of cohabitation is even more problematic and easily attracts corruption because all that two people claiming to be staying with each other need to produce is a contract written by the notary public (notarial contract), added Motsoaledi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nothing in the law forbids two people to legitimise their relationship through a notarial contract. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The problem is that some of the contracts presented to the department look very suspicious and warrant a thorough investigation when such applications are processed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
More worryingly, the minister said that spousal visa applications based on notarial contracts are increasing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is common cause that the department does not have enough Immigration officers who have to be tasked with investigating the authenticity of relationships. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Yet, without knowing whether relationships are authentic, the department will find itself issuing visas to people who do not deserve to be in the country,” he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
From January 2023 to November 2023, 1,614 fraudulent marriages were encountered, and 1,102 have been expunged. The remainder are still under further investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nRead: Plans to grab retirement savings to fund government projects in South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fake marriages are proving to be a challenge for the Department of Home Affairs as it tries to deal with a growing backlog of visas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":710882,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[2524,853],"class_list":["post-755457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-home-affairs","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=755457"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":755517,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755457\/revisions\/755517"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/710882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=755457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=755457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=755457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}