Motsoaledi was speaking at a media briefing in Hatfield, Pretoria, yesterday on the amended immigration regulations, over which he said there seemed to be some misunderstanding.He said as a result of the confusion, the department would be withdrawing the gazetted amendments to clear up the misconceptions and re-gazette them as early as next week.The minister admitted that his department was experiencing a backlog surrounding dependants, spouses and relatives’ visas being sought by foreign nationals who had been approved to come into the country after successfully obtaining employment.
He said in most cases while the approvals were easily obtained, they,= however, did not include spouses and dependants, which many were decrying as they were not willing to be separated from their families.
Despite understanding this need, Motsoaledi said there was a situation which allowed foreign nationals to obtain a spousal visa should they marry a South African citizen, which was causing a problem for the department.

With this loophole, he said they were finding that, in many cases, spouses that did not exist were being created through notarial contracts simply to obtain visas.

“Through the notarial contracts you come with a partner, and go to the notary general to write you a contract stating that you are staying together as partners and when you bring that to Home Affairs, they regard you as a spouse.“The number of notarial contracts is increasing day by day but when we send immigration officers to visit such families, they don’t find any spouse and yet we have a document that says we must issue a spousal visa,” Motsoaledi said.

The minister said what was even more alarming was the fact that the number of these kinds of contracts were growing in “leaps and bounds”, resulting in the

backlog.

“This backlog is changing every day because the notarials are growing daily. Now we have a situation where immigration officers visit families for six months with no spouse in sight, so what are we to do? Unfortunately, it’s a problem we are going to have to change because it’s in the law.”

He stressed that his department usually did not experience backlogs on critical skills, general work and business visas “but people with critical skills may be complaining of delays referring to delays in obtaining spouses for their visas”.

“The only way to know that indeed we have delayed giving someone a critical skills visa is for companies to provide us with a name of the employed person, because once you appear in the gazette and give us a letter of employment from your employer we issue it (the visa) immediately.”

Motsoaledi said that while several complaints have been received from the Chamber of Business units and allegations by the media when requested to provide a list of names to verify, none were forthcoming.“The reality we face is that you might be an engineer with a PhD but if no company gives you a job in South Africa, why should we allow you to come? There must be a company that needs you and then we can come in and facilitate entry into the country.

“The change we are bringing in these amendments is to do away with the requirement of having to go to the Department of Employment and Labour and replace it with a point-based system.”

The minister said they were unable to expand more on the point-based system because it still needed to be gazetted as they wanted to hear what the public would say about the scoring or points awarded. V.5293

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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Minister Aaron Motsoaledi’s indifference to the plight of those affected by his decisions is appalling In the tumultuous seas of immigration law, where uncertainty looms and families are left adrift in bureaucratic limbo, the department of home affairs has emerged as a sinking ship. As a director of a firm of immigration attorneys I’ve witnessed first-hand the dire consequences of the department’s negligence and incompetence. Today, I raise my voice not just as an attorney but as a concerned citizen, urging for a radical overhaul to salvage what remains of our immigration system. We have tirelessly fought battles in the courtroom against home affairs’ disregard for agreed-upon time frames. Countless cases have landed on our desks, each one a testament to the systemic failures plaguing the department. We’ve seen cases where contempt applications were the only recourse, as the department brazenly ignored court orders. V.5307
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Document proposes overhauling the Citizenship Act, the Refugees Act and the Immigration Act and a review of the international treaty on refugee protection Home affairs minister Aaron Motsoaledi says the cabinet has approved a white paper overhauling the country’s immigration laws after “robust engagements” that resulted in “wide support” of the document’s policy positions. V.5308
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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. The lost hours are largely due to system downtime, surpassing load-shedding. In the 2022/2023 financial year, where we experienced extensive load-shedding, system downtime was the cause of 41 691 hours lost (17 years), whereas load-shedding caused around 9 322 hours lost (4 years) at DHA civic offices on the production of smart IDs. V.5309
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JOHANNESBURG - Minister of Home Affairs Aaron Motsoaledi said that while the White Paper on Citizenship, Immigration and Refugee Protection had been gazetted, there were amendments that needed to be made to the legislation before it could be passed into law. The White Paper is proposing an overhaul of the country`s migration laws, with the aim of tightening rules around allowing migrants into the country. V.5310
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