BL Premium reports that according to Department of Home Affairs (DHA) Minister Aaron Motsoaledi, his department and the Department of Trade, Industry & Competition (DTI&C) have set up a dedicated team to track and ensure the finalisation of business visa applications.

This system was instituted to address the backlogs in applications for critical skills, business and work visas for corporate companies and key investment projects and to prioritise certain applications. Overcoming bottlenecks in the issuing of work visas is one of the objectives of the Presidency’s Vulindlela project, which aims to address the structural constraints to economic growth. The critical skills work visa is issued in accordance with the critical skills list, which was updated by the DHA in February and added to in August to include other skills, mainly related to specialist medical and health practitioners. The minister said the directors-general of the two departments were leading the team. It meets weekly and tracks the progress on all applications. It is overseen by Motsoaledi and DTI&C Minister Ebrahim Patel, and also works with the Department of Employment and Labour to ensure compliance with labour requirements. Meantime as from 1 September, the processing of visa applications was delegated back to all foreign missions from Pretoria due to the severe backlogs that had arisen under the centralised system.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Linda Ensor at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)

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