Home Affairs Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi also discussed how small businesses can now make use of the new start-up visas for staff.
Home Affairs Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi has highlighted a need to look at reworking spousal visa protocols after they contributed to a backlog at the department more so than any other visa category.
Speaking to media on amended immigration regulations on Tuesday, Motsoaledi and other officials also spent time explaining how businesses particularly small businesses can benefit from new visa schemes.
Visa backlog
The minister said about 90% of the visas in their backlog are applications for relative visas and spousal visas, and this needs looking at.
Motsoaledi described a “conundrum” of having to check that just about every spouse who applies is indeed legally married to the South African citizen.
“Unfortunately, we are reaching a situation were spouses are created where they don’t exist.” he said, explaining this includes couples who go to notary generals to write a contract that they are staying together as partners, and then taking that to Home Affairs to apply for spousal visas.
“But when we send immigration officers to visit such families they never find a spouse.”
Some couples claiming to be spouses also do not have marriage contract numbers, which makes verifying their legal union difficult.
Motsoaledi said critical skills, general work and business visas generally do not see a backlog.
However, another problem Home Affairs experiences is waiting for proof of qualifications from employers before issuing work visas.
Project team tackles the backlog
Director General Livhuwani Tommy Makhode said there is a project team working to clear the visa backlog.
In fact, the

turnaround time of critical skills visas has been shortened from eight weeks to about four weeks, he said.
“We have also had an offer from the private sector that wants to come and assist and we are working on the modalities with regards to that,” Makhode said.
The exact figures detailing the visa backlog will be provided to the media at a later date, the officials said.
Trusted employer scheme
Deputy director-general of immigration services at Home Affairs Yusuf Simons said the trusted employer scheme was in its first round as a pilot programme.
“It is a new introduction of a world-wide phenomenon that is taking place to have relationships with employers,” he said.
“We are looking at taking another cohort from May onwards so if you meet the criteria of course you can apply.”
However, those who do not meet the criteria may approach the corporate account unit. This will allow SMMEs and NGOs to register through them, although they will not have the same privileges as larger companies.
The advantage of a start-up visa
As a recommended new visa category, the start-up visa will be implemented alongside a business visa that was already approved.
“The start-up visa makes provision for any person who intends to establish or want to invest in any business can then apply under the regulation 14(1) of the Immigration Act… that gives the opportunity for any small business that falls out of the trusted employer scheme category to slot into that category, or go to our large account unit and register there as an employer, where we will also have a team that looks at those applications,” Simons said V.5291

There are fears that more people will be separated by the introduction of a minimum salary level for those wanting UK family visas. Families living in the UK and abroad have raised concerns about what new rules will mean for them as they try to reunite with foreign spouses. In December, the Home Office, which says migration to the UK is too high, announced a package of measures to reduce net migration, following a spike in arrival numbers. V.5318
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An Ethiopian asylum seeker, who does not speak English, claims he was duped by a senior immigration official into paying an admission of guilt fine when he thought he was paying for bail.Two Western Cape High Court judges have condemned the official`s `deplorable` behaviour, set aside the fine, and ordered the immigration official be taken off the case. Tsegaye Esyas claims Annelise van Dyk treated him like an animal which led to him attempt suicide while in police cells. V.5320
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EREMY MAGGS: I want to stay with crime now. Individuals with a criminal record may be faced with significant challenges when seeking employment, I think that’s a given. Here in South Africa, employers may legally exclude an applicant from consideration for a position if having a clean criminal record is what is termed an inherent requirement of the job. That phrase, inherent requirement, is important, but what exactly does that mean, and when can an applicant be lawfully excluded for having a criminal record? V.5321
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As a South African who has adopted a nomadic work lifestyle alongside my wife, Ingrid Lotze, I’ve been an interested observer of South Africa’s snail-pace digital nomad visa (DNV) development process. Despite the optimism surrounding its introduction, the visa seems to miss several crucial marks for digital nomads like us. V.5322
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DA MP says hours lost continue to result in persons being unable to collect their ID documents due to unmanageable queues The DA has been inundated with complaints that the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) systems are offline, resulting in long queues and delayed processing of documents. Through questions posed to the Minister, the DA can now reveal that the DHA has lost over 77 years’ worth of working hours due to system downtime and load-shedding from 2019 to date. Concerningly, this data only relates to hours lost for the application of smart IDs, meaning decades more of working hours could have been additionally lost in other spheres such as passport or visa applications. V.5314
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Home Affairs’ seemingly endless court battles set the department back more than R110-million between April 2023 and the end of February this year. This was revealed in a written parliamentary response by minister Aaron Motsoaledi. He said the department accumulated a litigation bill of R117 692 996.3, higher than the R72 637 944.51 spent the year before. V.5315
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Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) this week revealed that Cape Town International Airport (CTIA) has achieved a ground-breaking milestone by processing more than 10 million passengers over a single financial year. This is the highest number of regional and international passengers processed since COVID-19 V.5316
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In recent years, South Africa has seen a significant influx of immigrants from various African countries, as well as other parts of the world. This has raised important questions about the country`s immigration policies and their impact on job creation for both locals and immigrants. The South African immigration system, like many other countries, is a complex and ever-evolving process that aims to balance the country`s economic needs with its social and cultural interests. Let`s take a closer look at how this system intersects with job creation in South Africa. The South African government implemented the Immigration Act of 2002, which outlines the country`s immigration policies and procedures. Under this act, foreigners are required to obtain a visa or permit to enter, work, or study in South Africa. The type of visa or permit required depends on the intended purpose of the individual`s visit and their country of origin. V.5312
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Due to system downtime and load-shedding, the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) lost nearly 141,000 hours of Smart ID application and production time between the 2019/20 and 2022/23 financial years. Minister Aaron Motsoaledi revealed this figure in a recent response to questions raised in Parliament by Democratic Alliance MP Adrian Roos. Motsoaledi provided a breakdown of smart ID production and application hours lost to technical difficulties and load-shedding per province for each financial year from 2019/2020. These disruptions hit home Affairs offices in the Eastern Cape the hardest, with over 34,000 hours to rotational power cuts and system downtime. Mpumalanga offices lost the next-highest number of hours at 17 V.5313
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Home Affairs Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi has said the public has shown great support for the final White Paper on citizenship, immigration and refugee protection which appeared in the Government Gazette on Wednesday. Briefing the media, he addressed what he saw as a long-overdue need to replace an outdated Citizenship Act, as well as enact proposed changes to existing legislation. V.5306
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