News / Africa
South Africa clears temporary residency backlog
27 Aug 2012 at 05:03hrs | Views
THE backlog in processing South Africa's temporary residence permit applications, dating back to December 2010, has been cleared, SA's Deputy Home Affairs Minister Fatima Chohan claimed on Friday.
Backlogs in processing work permits had severely affected companies wishing to bring in highly skilled foreign workers for important short-term projects, and have led to costly delays for companies, say immigration agencies. While the department had already turned around the issuance of papers such as identity documents and passports, residence applications had remained a problem, the Business Day reported.
Ms Chohan said the backlog of more than 46,000 applications for temporary residence permits, caused by administrative inefficiencies at provincial offices, dated back to December 2010.
"We introduced a two-stream . process. This made sure that while we were able to deal with the backlog we made sure that we were able to deal with the current applications as well."
Ms Chohan said she was confident the department would meet application turnaround times now that it no longer had a backlog and the necessary processes were now in place. Application for temporary residence permits would take eight weeks and permanent permits eight months, she said. The department's deputy director-general Jackson McKay blamed the backlog on inefficient processes and a severe shortage of staff at provincial level where permits were adjudicated.
"The adjudication of permits used to take place at provincial office level prior (to) 2010. One of the problems is that there was no direct control of the adjudication and the number that came in at a decentralised level. In all our offices there was no real dedicated staff that dealt with the adjudication of permits," he said.
The department centralised the adjudication of permits so that it could have better control over the process and at the same time deal with the staff shortages.
Ms Chohan said the department had now turned its attention to the backlog of permanent res¬idence permits applications and planned to have this eradicated by December. Ms Chohan said that more than 279,000 applications received under a project to speed up the documentation of Zimbabweans by a December 2010 deadline had been finalised.
Mr McKay said the process had been delayed by the Zimbabwean government's inability to issue passports and other documents to their nationals tirneously.
Backlogs in processing work permits had severely affected companies wishing to bring in highly skilled foreign workers for important short-term projects, and have led to costly delays for companies, say immigration agencies. While the department had already turned around the issuance of papers such as identity documents and passports, residence applications had remained a problem, the Business Day reported.
Ms Chohan said the backlog of more than 46,000 applications for temporary residence permits, caused by administrative inefficiencies at provincial offices, dated back to December 2010.
"We introduced a two-stream . process. This made sure that while we were able to deal with the backlog we made sure that we were able to deal with the current applications as well."
Ms Chohan said she was confident the department would meet application turnaround times now that it no longer had a backlog and the necessary processes were now in place. Application for temporary residence permits would take eight weeks and permanent permits eight months, she said. The department's deputy director-general Jackson McKay blamed the backlog on inefficient processes and a severe shortage of staff at provincial level where permits were adjudicated.
"The adjudication of permits used to take place at provincial office level prior (to) 2010. One of the problems is that there was no direct control of the adjudication and the number that came in at a decentralised level. In all our offices there was no real dedicated staff that dealt with the adjudication of permits," he said.
The department centralised the adjudication of permits so that it could have better control over the process and at the same time deal with the staff shortages.
Ms Chohan said the department had now turned its attention to the backlog of permanent res¬idence permits applications and planned to have this eradicated by December. Ms Chohan said that more than 279,000 applications received under a project to speed up the documentation of Zimbabweans by a December 2010 deadline had been finalised.
Mr McKay said the process had been delayed by the Zimbabwean government's inability to issue passports and other documents to their nationals tirneously.
Source - Business Day
