Recently we were
witness to some interesting news
that the Director General of the
Department of Home Affairs, Mr Mkuseli
Apleni, delivered to the parliamentary
portfolio committee on Home Affairs.
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Backlog
It has been promised that the
backlog of all temporary residence
permits would be cleared by
end April 2012. This is surprising
since, at IBN alone, we have
several applications outstanding
from 2011 that nobody seems
to be attending to.
Surprisingly, it does seem hopeful
that the processing times for
applications submitted this
year have been reduced with
results received within 40 days
after submission.
Misplaced?
However, numerous applications
submitted in 2011 seem to have
been affected by the move of
Home Affairs Head Office from
Waltloo (east of Pretoria) to
the Hallmark building in Pretoria
city centre, and by affected,
I mean lost or misplaced and
nobody seems to be interested
in taking up these older cases. |
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Immigration Amendment
Act
Moreover, it has been reported
that the Immigration Amendment Act
has now been introduced, but the
Immigration Regulations are still
outstanding and without them, realistically
the new Act cannot be implemented.
Permanent Residency Apps
The DG has created a picture that
most problems will be addressed
and solved within the first half
of 2012. This is where we have to
raise our biggest objection. The
backlog on Permanent Residence applications
is still substantial with some applications
outstanding now older than 4 years.
The Appeal Process
The appeal process is not functioning
at all due to a lack of staff resources.
A process, which was designed by
the legislator, basically hasn’t
existed for the past 3 years and
the call centre does not revert
back to you after you have logged
a query, and they seem equally feeble
on providing the status on any specific
case.
Reliable Embassies
Due to the existing problems with
the Department of Home Affairs in
South Africa, we recommend that
clients submit their immigration
applications to the embassies abroad
and although some of them try to
match the service level of the Department
of Home Affairs in South Africa,
which isn’t difficult, most
of them actually render a more reliable,
rather fast and accountable service.
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