Question NW387 to the Minister of Home Affairs
19 March 2024 - NW387
Loate, Mr T to ask the Minister of Home Affairs
(1)Whether, in view of the fact that the National Treasury did not have the money to assist his department to obtain more money in order to employ more staff to have a contingency of at least 60% to operate optimally in sorting out visa applications, his department employed innovative and speedy measures to fasttrack the applications for 35 000 visas of persons who had legitimate spouses in the Republic and wanted to come and live in the country and seek employment here as well; if not, why not; if so, what are the relevant details; (2) what are the reasons that legitimate foreign spouses of South African citizens cannot have their visa applications speedily processed?
Reply:
1. The Department has developed a Backlog Eradication Plan and the Plan was presented to the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs. The Plan includes amongst other additional capacity to complement the current Immigration Services’ team. An additional 117 officials coming from Head Office and Provinces have been put together to deal with the Backlog Eradication Plan.
The Department through Operation Vulindlela has sought the support of the private sector to speed up verification of documents as verifications contribute to delays in the processing of visas.
2. To establish the legitimacy of any spousal relationship for a visa application, the adjudication process requires that such relationships should be verified for authenticity. This includes the notarial agreements that are submitted in support of such applications. In most cases the contact number of the purported South African spouse is not provided, making it difficult to confirm with certainty that the South African citizen is indeed party to the relationship.
END.