The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) has backtracked on its new Immigration Regulations but still has several new initiatives in the pipeline for South Africa.
Minister of Home Affairs Aaron Motsoaledi said that he would withdraw the recently gazetted Immigration Regulation Amendments.
The regulations replaced the highly-contested critical skills list with a new points-based system.
The regulations were received positively by businesses in South Africa, with the Consumer Goods Council of South Africa saying that they should ease the administrative burden that international companies with businesses in South Africa face when hiring skilled foreigners.
However, the Minister still faced backlash after the regulations were published a day prior to the closing date for comments (29 March), which he said was due to being misadvised.
He said that the Department is in the process of finalising the regulations and will provide a revised version next week.
He also announced several significant updates and initiatives within the Department.
Marisa Jacobs, the Managing Director at Xpatweb, broke down the new initiatives:
Remote Work Visa
The Remote Work Visa is designed for individuals wishing to work in South Africa while working for foreign employers.
The visa targets high-earning individuals and aims to stimulate the South African economy.
General Work Visa changes
The aforementioned Points-Based system for a General Work Visa aims to eliminate the need to obtain a letter from the Department of Labour.
This new streamlined approach looks at criteria based on factors, such as age and qualifications to determine visa eligibility on a points-based scale.
Critical Skills List
Organisations can now also expedite the gazetting process for critical skills that are seen as essential, removing the previous four-year waiting period.
This should facilitate swift approval for in-demand skills.
Trusted Employer Scheme
Jacobs said that the Trusted Employer Scheme (TES) has been successful, but the Minister warned that approved Employers will soon face stricter compliance measures, such as random checks by the Department.
Non-compliance would result in the expulsion of the TES program.
That said, the Department is inviting a second round of submissions from qualifying companies to join TES in May 2024.

Management of the Backlog
The Minister also said that 90% of the total backlog faced by the Department is due to Relative, Dependent and Spousal visas, with the delays attributed to challenges in verifying marriages.
A dedicated team has been assigned to expedite applications.
“The DHA plans to provide detailed statistics on visa approvals versus rejections to indicate the current processing times of the various visa categories,” said Jacobs.
“The Minister further touched on the current directive which allows any individual who has applied for an extension of their visa and has received a VFS receipt status in South Africa while awaiting the outcome of the application.”
Review of the White Paper
The DHA is also reviewing laws outlined in the highly controversial White Paper on Citizenship, Immigration and Refugee Protection, with a focus on replacing certain sections.
The White Paper aims to amend the South African Citizenship Act, which Motsoaledi called a ‘relic of the colonial era’, but Rebecca Walker and Loren B Landau from the University of the Witwatersrand that the changes are just a smokescreen to distract voters from the government’s failures ahead of the elections.
“Changes being considered adhere strictly to regulatory frameworks, ensuring compliance and legality,” said Jacobs.
New Start-up Visa
A new start-up visa is also being considered for individuals wishing to open or invest in a small- or medium-sized business in South Africa.
Concerned individuals will also be afforded access to the corporate account unit within the DHA.
Key Take Away
“Where you need an urgent work or residency visa, the process has not changed much for the past two years �` you need to apply as early as possible and be ready for legal escalation where DHA do not do their job,” said Jacobs
“We are cautiously optimistic, as we are seeing quicker turnaround on some matters. Yet, we were also today in court against DHA, so there remain two sides to the coin.”
“A correctly issued work and residency permit is one of the most stressful events where it goes wrong, as it impacts every aspect of one’s life.” V.5300

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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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