NATIONAL NEWS - The 24/25 financial year Annual Report for the Department of Home Affairs, the first under Minister Leon Schreiber, reports a staggering improvement in processing time for work visas.
MP Adrian Roos, DA Spokesperson on Home Affairs, says between the 23/24 financial year and 24/25 financial year, critical skills visas improved from 52% to 89%, business visas from 61% to 97% and general work visas from a dismal 10% to 98%.
According to the Medium Term Development Plan (MTDP) for 2024-2029, a key priority of the Department of Home Affairs is to reform the visa regime to attract skills, promote investment and grow tourism in support of economic growth and job creation.
This is achieved by a reduction in processing time for work visas and initiatives implemented to attract skills, promote investment and grow the tourism sector.
Initiatives implemented to attract skills, promote investment and grow the tourism sector, such as the Trusted Tour Operator Scheme (TTOS), have attracted 40 000 tourists and created over 3 000 tourism jobs in the first phase alone.
Roos says the second priority of the department is to ensure all South Africans can obtain smart and digital IDs and e-Passports.
On this measure, 3,6 million identity documents were produced, up from 2,8 million in the 23/24 financial year and exceeding the annual target by nearly one million.
This indicates that the system modernisation programme and interventions to deal with systems offline are delivering results.
There has also been an exponential improvement in Immigration Affairs performance, from 40% to 87,5%. This shows that visa reforms can be implemented to encourage tourism and investment by foreign nationals while dealing decisively with illegal immigration.
Roos welcomed the "outstanding performance of the Department of Home Affairs in exceeding its targets on growing the economy and creating jobs".
"This unprecedented improvement in performance shows that difference that quality and committed leadership can make in spaces that have long been synonymous with underperformance."
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