The way is finally open for skilled foreigners to apply for work visas under South Africa’s new points system after the home affairs department gazetted a revised version of its new visa regulations on Monday.
The regulations, which also provide for new remote work visas, had to be withdrawn in March after the department gazetted them a day before the deadline for public comment, with home affairs minister Aaron Motsoaledi admitting he’d been "ill advised" and promising to regazette the regulations and rectify issues that had raised concerns.
They have been reissued with tweaks that remove problematic clauses in the March regulations, including the requirement for visa applicants under the points system to be able to "adapt within the republic" and the tax requirements imposed on remote visa applicants.
Reforms to the visa regime are one of the priority areas President Cyril Ramaphosa targeted to boost economic growth and job creation, and the new regulations are expected to make it easier and faster for the country to attract the skilled foreign workers it urgently needs.
They come ahead of Wednesday’s update from the Presidency’s reform unit, Operation Vulindlela, on the progress it has achieved on its priority list of growth-boosting reforms since it was launched in 2018. The unit, which has clocked up significant progress in its first phase in key areas, such as energy and logistics, is also expected to outline a second phase of reforms to be proposed to the first cabinet meeting of the new administration.
With the latest regulations from home affairs in place, Operation Vulindlela can tick off the last item on its shortlist of visa reforms, which aimed to enable South Africa to attract more tourists and more skilled foreign workers.
They come after government introduced e-visas for tourists from 34 countries in 2021, expanded the list of visa-exempt countries to more than 100 in 2022, and updated the critical skills list for work visa applicants four times.
The new points system for work visas will enable more skilled foreigners to qualify, providing an alternative to the critical skills list and enabling those earning more than R1m to apply based on their age, qualifications, language skills, work experience and an offer of employment.
The new rules also make it easier to get work visas for skilled people, such as foreign film crew, academics and journalists, who need to work in the country.
They remove or ease cumbersome aspects of the old rules, such as the requirement for applicants to be screened for TB and to obtain police clearance certificates from every country they’ve lived in. They also remove the requirement for professionals such as doctors and engineers to get professional registration in South Africa before they could apply for a visa. This requirement tended to pitch them into a "doom loop" in which they couldn’t obtain a visa without registration but couldn’t get registration without a visa.
The home affairs department has also introduced a new "trusted employer" system to enable large employers to fast-track work visa applications. It said in April it had confirmed 72 employers as part of a pilot scheme and planned to open it to a further cohort of employers.
The rules give effect to the recommendations of a review for the Presidency, led by former home affairs director-general Mavuso Msimang, which found the department rejected more than half the skilled work visa applications received between 2014 and 2021, approving only 26,000 over that period.
In addition, South Africa took much longer to process these than many other emerging market countries.
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