Parliament wants review of VFS Global’s visa contract

Source: Business Day, 12/03/2019

VFS Global manages visa application centres on behalf of the
department.
The appointment of VFS to act as the front-end administrative
function for the department came into effect on June 20 2014.
The home affairs minister at the time told the media that the
appointment of VFS would help speed up functions and make the
department more efficient. It also freed badly needed staff from
the mundane tasks of handling forms and the collection of
information.
All visa and permit applications are first processed at VFS
centres. These applications are then assessed by the department of
home affairs in Pretoria.
Applicants must now pay an additional fee to VFS, which costs up
to R3,000 a person. This fee is applied in cases such as appeals
which should be free, immigration lawyers said when it was
introduced.
Immigration experts and lawyers argued then that the service fee
was not provided for in law and made the acquisition of
constitutional requirements such as identity books and birth
certificates out of reach for most.
For example, a critical skills visa an applicant who would have
normally paid the department R1,520 for the visa will also now
have to pay VFS R1,350 for the front-end service.
The minister will be expected to respond to the committee within a
week, to ensure that the matter is dealt with before parliament
rises on March 20.
The committee criticised the department for its decision to grant
VFS Global a two-year extension, saying it is in violation of the
Public Finance Management Act and National Treasury regulations on
procurement within competitive bidding processes.
“The extension creates a perception of another Cash Paymaster
Services (CPS), which was the only service provider at the South
Africa Social Security Agency said to have the capacity to render
services. It is even more concerning that the department has
extended the scope of work of VFS to establish services in
countries it did not have previously,” said Hlomani Chauke, who
chairs the home affairs committee.
He said it raises concerns about the legitimacy of the contract.
Chauke said that while the committee acknowledged that parliament
had no right to inform the department on which companies to
contract for services, it would be a dereliction of its duty if it
did not highlight cases where the department was deliberately
breaking its own rules and guidelines.
Chauke said the lack of capacity at the department to process visa
applications was raised as a matter of concern as it hampers the
drive to grow SA’s economy through tourism.
“It is even more concerning that capacity in key tourism markets,
such as Nigeria and India, is lacking, leading to fewer processed
applications and impacting on the numbers of tourists coming into
the country,” he said.