Immigration rules ‘to stay for now’
THE home affairs minister says controversial new immigration regulations “are not cast in stone” but are being implemented in full. Malusi Gigaba said no concessions were planned.
THE controversial immigration regulations gazetted last May “are not cast in stone” but will still be implemented in full, Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba says.
The tough new regulations caused an outcry from the public and the tourism industry, prompting Mr Gigaba to form a task team with stakeholders.
In his state of the nation speech President Jacob Zuma said the government would “prioritise the review of visa regulations to strike a balance between national security and growth in tourism”.
However, in a briefing at Parliament yesterday and in an interview with Business Day on Friday, Mr Gigaba said that no concessions were planned.
The only exception granted to the regulations was the delay in the enforcement of the requirement that South African minors travelling crossing SA borders carry unabridged birth certificates. This will be implemented on June 1.
Should the task team with the tourism and hospitality industries “put forward innovative ideas to address their concerns as well as ours, we are not averse to listening”, Mr Gigaba said.
However, implementation of the regulations was proceeding.
SA would not compromise on the requirement that visa applicants do so in person, he said. However, the department was looking for ways to expand the points of application to make the process more convenient.
This could include the use of videoconferencing to allow applicants to be interviewed in person.
The two biggest problem areas were China and India, where “more robust discussion” was required at a political level to allow for the expansion of visa services.
The Department of Home Affairs was working through the applications for unabridged birth certificates with another 70,000 or so to go and had begun the process of proactively converting birth certificates to the unabridged version in all instances where children had already been issued with passports. The unabridged birth certificate applied to South African citizens only and foreign minors could travel with birth certificates as issued in their country.
“We won’t eliminate all the problems by June but we are hope- ful that by then we will have dealt with the backlog of all who have already applied,” he said.
Mr Gigaba provided details of a pilot project that would allow bank customers to apply for smart-card IDs in home affairs kiosks set up in banks. First National Bank, Stan- dard Bank and Nedbank had so far agreed to participate, which would allow the department to dramatically expand its footprint. So far 140 offices are equipped to provide smart cards, with a further 38 to be included in the coming year.