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SA`s dismal e-Visa service may soon get professional help �` but it could take a while

Source: Business Insider SA, 16/11/2022

South Africa`s e-Visa system, meant to simplify the process for travel to the country, has been marred by delays and technical challenges. Now, the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) is in talks with a private company, already heavily involved with visa admin, to help out.

`The decision to introduce the e-Visa was informed by observable benefits of this system. It is reliable, client-friendly, and convenient for visa applicants, airlines, trading partners and Home Affairs officials,` announced Minister Aaron Motsoaledi in December 2019.

The testing phase of South Africa`s e-Visa system, which included Kenya, China, India, and Nigeria, was due to be completed by March 2020. Two years later, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that the e-Visa system had been officially launched to include 14 countries.

But the e-Visa launch was met with criticism from potential travellers and South African tourism businesses.
The online platform was unstable and difficult to navigate, a far cry from a world-class system which would be inviting to tourists, said Rosemary Anderson, national chairperson of the Federated Hospitality Association of South Africa. The same concerns were voiced by IBN Immigration Solutions, which said its branch in Kenya had tried to use the online system, with no luck.

Foreign tourists trying to use South Africa`s e-Visa system have described it as `slow, unreliable, and inefficient` in several online complaints, some as recent as August. More recently, Tourism Minister Lindiwe Sisulu admitted that the expansion of the e-Visa system was hamstrung by a huge backlog and needed `a lot of work`.

VFS Global, which already works with South Africa`s DHA, along with more than 60 other governments around the world, to facilitate the processing of visa applications, has confirmed that it is assisting in developing a better e-Visa system.

`Many governments and ministries, they are also looking to digitise their visa services. They want to move out of the physical application pack [and are] getting into the e-Visa space, and we are already there as a market leader in terms of providing an end-to-end e-Visa solution,` said Hariprasad Viswanathan, VFS Global`s head in Sub-Saharan Africa, during a media briefing on Wednesday.

Viswanathan added that the company had already developed functional e-Visa systems for several countries, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE). He also confirmed that VFS Global was planning to test a new and improved e-Visa programme in South Africa.

`We are in the process of doing a pilot,` Viswanathan told Business Insider SA, adding that while VFS Global was engaging the DHA on a new pilot programme, the process was not at an advanced stage and no timelines could be given.

`We have still not implemented that [as] we are waiting for official approvals from the department of home affairs. We`re still in progress with them. Once we`ve implemented [the pilot], we could tell you how soon it can be expanded. With our expertise, we do feel that it will be a simple process… [but] we are not able to provide the complete details around its implementation.`

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