What’s Changed?
Effective immediately, The South African Department of Home Affairs (DHA) has issued a new policy circular making significant changes to the validity period of all visas, the rules for visa transfers and rectifications, and the appeals process for rejected applications. Some of these changes represent significant departures from past practice and have immediate impact – particularly for current visa holders already in South Africa.
Visa Validities May Not Exceed Passport Validity
In a change of potentially immediate concern for companies, foreign employees, and their families, the DHA will no longer accept applications for the transfer of a visa if the applicant’s passport is already expired. Going forward, new visas will not be issued for a validity period exceeding the applicant’s passport expiration date. However, if a visa is issued with a validity that exceeds the passport’s validity, the DHA will now consider it as issued in error and withdraw the visa entirely.
As the rules already require that foreign nationals’ passports be valid for at least 30 days after the time of departure from South Africa, the maximum possible validity period for any visa is now the validity period of the passport minus 30 days. Under these new rules, if foreign nationals are in South Africa within 30 days of their passport expiring, their visa will be considered withdrawn or expired, and they will be liable for an overstay, resulting in a one-year entry bar.
In addition, foreign national visa holders currently outside of South Africa should take note that the previous practice of entering South Africa with two passports – the expired passport containing the valid visa, and a new passport without a visa – is no longer permitted. Therefore, they should renew their passport before applying for their visa if the expected visa validity period will extend beyond 30 days before their current passport expires.
New Restrictions for Transfer of Valid Visas
As visas cannot outlive the validity of the passport, the DHA has also issued new regulations regarding the transfer of visas to a new passport. Thus, the DHA will now only accept applications to transfer visas from an old passport to a new passport under one of the two following conditions: (1) the passport containing the valid visa is lost, stolen, or damaged, or (2) the passport containing the visa is full and there are no blank pages available for the holder to travel. Again, under these new rules, the visa cannot be transferred if the passport has expired. While there is no government fee, a VFS service fee of ZAR 1350 will be charged for all visa transfers.
Rectification of Visa Errors
The DHA will now only accept applications for visa rectifications under one of the following conditions:
- The name of the applicant is spelled incorrectly or not captured correctly from the application form;
- The visa category is captured incorrectly and is not the same as that applied for in the application;
- The visa reference number is incorrect and does not correspond to the reference number given when the application was accepted; or
- The visa issue date or expiry date do not correspond to the correct validity period for the visa type for which the holder applied.
For visas issued by South African overseas consular posts, rectification can only be made after receiving an email from the consular post confirming the visa’s authenticity. There are no government or VFS fee for applications for visa rectification.
Appeals of Rejected Applications
The DHA will now only accept appeals from decisions rejecting visa applications if submitted in-person within 10 business days at a VFS office after payment of a ZAR 1350 service fee. Acceptable grounds for appeal include:
- Mistakes by the adjudicator;
- The application was rejected based on the wrong category;
- The adjudicator claimed that required documents were missing from the application, but the applicant believes all required documents were provided;
- The application was rejected based on grounds the applicant believes to be wrongful; and
- “Any other negative reason not mentioned above.”
Source
Cayman Islands lure South Africans with tax-free pay, opportunities
JOHANNESBURG – If you pushed your trolley down an aisle of the main supermarket in Grand Cayman, you’d be forgiven if you thought you were in South Africa.
“I’ve heard and spoken more Afrikaans here in the past year than I ever did back in Johannesburg. That should give you some sort of indication of how many South Africans are here,” South African-born chartered accountant Alon Berger (pictured below) tells Moneyweb.
After completing his articles at EY in Johannesburg in 2015, Berger headed to the Cayman Islands “for the hedge funds, beaches and tax-free pay”. While he expected to be challenged in his new role at PwC, the number of South Africans living and working on the island caught him off guard.
Due to the large expat community, the island’s main supermarket has an aisle with dedicated South African products and it is not unheard of for the local watering hole to host a “South Africa day”.
Berger says during a three-month period last year he was contacted by 18 different CAs(SA) – mostly newly-qualified or with one to three years experience – through Facebook or LinkedIn hoping to work on the island. The competition is fierce and many people don’t get an interview without a strong reference.
The decision to work abroad was not informed by fears about South Africa’s prospects but rather an opportunity to get exposure to some of the largest hedge funds in the world. Moving to the Caymans offered exciting career prospects, travel opportunities but also the ability to earn a foreign salary.
Source
South Africans Vow to Punish Foreigners as Minister Calls for Peace
WASHINGTON —
South African Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba has urged residents of Rosettenville suburb in Johannesburg to stop attacking foreigners accused of perpetrating crime.
Gigaba, who toured the suburb on Monday where about 10 houses occupied by foreigners allegedly selling drugs and promoting prostitution were set on fire, said locals should report such incidents to the police instead of taking matters into their own hands.
He told residents, after touring the affected area, that the South African government is aware of their grievances and will do all it can to address them.
But he was quick to stress that it is wrong to attack foreigners. “No person has the right to take the law into his or her own hands … We need to assess the whole situation concerning people said to be committing crimes before we take any action.”
However, his calls fell on deaf ears as some of the residents said they are sick and tired of foreigners who are allegedly selling drugs to their children and promoting prostitution.
One of them, Teressa Zwane, said, “They (foreigners) are selling drugs to our children. They are also promoting prostitution here. We are now sick and tired of them. They must go because even police are not taking any action even if we inform them about what is going on.”
Source
SOUTH AFRICA | Major Changes on Visa Validity, Transfers, Rectifications, and Appeals
What’s Changed?
Effective immediately, The South African Department of Home Affairs (DHA) has issued a new policy circular making significant changes to the validity period of all visas, the rules for visa transfers and rectifications, and the appeals process for rejected applications. Some of these changes represent significant departures from past practice and have immediate impact – particularly for current visa holders already in South Africa.
Visa Validities May Not Exceed Passport Validity
In a change of potentially immediate concern for companies, foreign employees, and their families, the DHA will no longer accept applications for the transfer of a visa if the applicant’s passport is already expired. Going forward, new visas will not be issued for a validity period exceeding the applicant’s passport expiration date. However, if a visa is issued with a validity that exceeds the passport’s validity, the DHA will now consider it as issued in error and withdraw the visa entirely.
As the rules already require that foreign nationals’ passports be valid for at least 30 days after the time of departure from South Africa, the maximum possible validity period for any visa is now the validity period of the passport minus 30 days. Under these new rules, if foreign nationals are in South Africa within 30 days of their passport expiring, their visa will be considered withdrawn or expired, and they will be liable for an overstay, resulting in a one-year entry bar.
In addition, foreign national visa holders currently outside of South Africa should take note that the previous practice of entering South Africa with two passports – the expired passport containing the valid visa, and a new passport without a visa – is no longer permitted. Therefore, they should renew their passport before applying for their visa if the expected visa validity period will extend beyond 30 days before their current passport expires.
New Restrictions for Transfer of Valid Visas
As visas cannot outlive the validity of the passport, the DHA has also issued new regulations regarding the transfer of visas to a new passport. Thus, the DHA will now only accept applications to transfer visas from an old passport to a new passport under one of the two following conditions: (1) the passport containing the valid visa is lost, stolen, or damaged, or (2) the passport containing the visa is full and there are no blank pages available for the holder to travel. Again, under these new rules, the visa cannot be transferred if the passport has expired. While there is no government fee, a VFS service fee of ZAR 1350 will be charged for all visa transfers.
Rectification of Visa Errors
The DHA will now only accept applications for visa rectifications under one of the following conditions:
For visas issued by South African overseas consular posts, rectification can only be made after receiving an email from the consular post confirming the visa’s authenticity. There are no government or VFS fee for applications for visa rectification.
Appeals of Rejected Applications
The DHA will now only accept appeals from decisions rejecting visa applications if submitted in-person within 10 business days at a VFS office after payment of a ZAR 1350 service fee. Acceptable grounds for appeal include:
Source
Malusi Gigaba: Hire At Least 60% South Africans
Cape Town – All businesses, not just those in the hospitality or construction sectors, were required to have a workforce of at least 60 percent South African citizens in their employ, Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba has clarified.
Gigaba said his department was preparing for a “mass inspection” of businesses countrywide, to ensure they complied.
“This has nothing to do with xenophobia, in fact xenophobic violence is what we want to prevent,” Gigaba said in an interview with the Cape Argus. “We must prioritise the employment of South Africans, and businesses across the board have to comply.”
Gigaba added: “The risk of not employing South Africans is that it endangers the lives of foreigners and the property of companies. If you look at the [xenophobic] violence that erupted in 2015, it started precisely because of a company at Isiphingo in Durban that employed non-South Africans, and South Africans attacked the company.”
He said the regulation was not new, but had been tightened to flush out companies that were flouting the law.
“What happened was that we changed a regulation, which in the past said that only a minimum of five South Africans needed to be employed by a company for it to obtain work visas.
Source