Home affairs commits to reducing permits backlog
It takes eight months to process a permanent residence permit application because it has to go through six processes
The department of home affairs is giving attention to clearing the backlog of applications for permanent and temporary residence permits that date back to 2016, and which cause immense frustration to people wanting to settle in the country.
But it only expects to have cleared the backlog in 15 months’ time.
Acting director of immigration services Yusuf Simons told members of parliament’s home affairs committee on Tuesday that measures to address the backlogs included bringing in more adjudicators, the use of overtime and reducing the number of layers of adjudication that an application has to go through before being considered by the director-general.
At present, it takes eight months to process a permanent residence permit application because it has to go through six processes.
Simons said that with the use of additional personnel, the backlog would be eliminated by June 2024.
The focus of the department would be to process applications lodged between 2016 and 2019, but that had to be balanced with the need to urgently process economic-related visas. The priority was to deal with applications for critical skills, business and work visas as those had an effect on economic growth and job creation, but doing that led to backlogs in other areas.
The 3,090 previously outstanding business-related applications had been processed. Most of the business- and work-related visas were not part of the backlog.
Organised business has repeatedly raised concern about the delays in processing visas, which it says harms investment and economic growth.
Deputy home affairs minister Njabulo Nzuza noted that 70% of the backlog of applications for permanent and temporary residence visas were by spouses and family members, which did not affect investment and the economy.
The total backlog for permanent residence permits in the system amounted to 49,529, with 40,340 of those at end-May 2022 being outstanding for more than eight months. Of these, 3,524 date back to 2016, 5,187 to 2017, 7,303 to 2018, 10,621 to 2019, 2,968 to 2020, three to 2021 (when the world was in the grip of the Covid-19 pandemic) and 10,759 to 2022.
With regard to temporary residence permits, the backlog of applications totals 75,814, with 23,988 having been received within eight weeks as at March 1.
In 2022, the department received 20,503 applications for permanent residence permits and 97,785 for temporary residence permits, with 18,480 and 92,400 respectively expected for 2023.
Since 2016, 123,000 applications for permanent residence permits and 739,000 applications for temporary residence permits have been processed.
By mid-February there were 7,000 applications for study visas, about 4,000 of which had been finalised with the remainder to be finalised by end-March to allow students to proceed with their studies.
Contributing to the backlogs is the high rejection rate for applications, which Simons said averaged 45% or even higher for some categories of visa, though for spousal applications it was much lower.
He told MPs that work was progressing with establishing the regulatory framework for remote working visas, which have been on the cards for some time. That could happen quite quickly as it would only require amendments to regulations and not legislation. The department was working with the presidency on that, he said.
Simons also noted that the department was compiling draft regulations to give effect to the recommendations of Vulindlela, a project in the presidency aimed at introducing economic reforms to accelerate growth. These draft regulations would be submitted to home affairs minister Aaron Motsoaledi by the end of May for approval.
The Vulindlela team made recommendations about improving the processing of applications including a reduction in the number of documents that applicants have to submit; for example, the time period for police clearance certificates to five years instead of the current requirement of every six months that a person has been in the country; radiology report; and for the departments of trade, industry and competition and labour to assist the department of home affairs with the verification of documents.