- The South African Department of the Interior is struggling with a significant visa backlog.
- The backlog includes more than 56,000 applications in all visa categories.
- Internal Affairs hopes to have them resolved by June 2024.
- Meanwhile, average visa delivery times have grown well beyond what the department’s performance plan dictates.
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The South African Department of Home Affairs (DHA) is working its way through a large backlog of visa applications, which it hopes to have resolved by June 2024.
Internal Affairs is drowning in pending visa applications. This backlog, made worse by the department’s disastrous decision to centralize the adjudication of long-term visas, has led to longer processing times, frustration for foreign applicants, and lost job opportunities.
This seemingly endless backlog has caused the DHA to issue consecutive blanket extensions for visa and waiver applicants, with the most recent deadline being March 31, 2023.
Under fierce pressure, IBN Immigration Solutions accused the DHA of unfairly denying applications. “Now, it seems that the Internal Affairs officials have clear KPIs to award X number [around 20] applications per day,” Andreas Krensel of IBN Immigration Solutions noted in November. “This leads to a very, very high number of rejections.”
And according to a recent parliamentary response by Home Secretary Aaron Motsoaledi, there is no quick fix to eliminate visa backlog.
“The current backlog across all visa categories is 56,543,” Motsoaledi said in response to a question posed by DA MP Thembisile Khanyile.
“The department anticipates having removed the current backlog by June 2024 for all visa categories.”
Meanwhile, turnaround times for visa applications have grown well beyond those listed in the department’s Annual Performance Plan (APP).
The turnaround time for critical skills visa applications is four weeks, according to the DHA APP. Currently, the average response time is four to 10 weeks.
Similarly, according to the APP, the Interior should take eight weeks to process business and work visas in general. Currently, the average response time is eight to 14 weeks.
