The Home Affairs Department plans to charge exorbitant fees for permanent residence, work permit and visa applications, reports Marion Edmunds
All visitors to South Africa are going to have to pay up as the Department of Home Affairs is poised to charge for visas. And would-be permanent residents are in for a bigger shock — it will cost them more than R5 500 to lodge an application.
While Home Affairs officials say it is too early to comment on the tariffs, the Mail & Guardian has established that the department will charge more than R5 500 for applications for permanent residence, more than R350 for study or work permits or for renewal of those permits, and more than R150 for visas for tourists.
These tariffs could be introduced at the beginning of May when regulations flowing from the Aliens Control Amendment Act are scheduled to be promulgated. The Act, which was passed by Parliament last year but is yet to be implemented, was meant to introduce a new era of transparency and accountability to Home Affairs and, in particular, open up its immigration policy to public scrutiny.
The more the M&G probes, the greater the mystery surrounding the department’s Immigration Board becomes. A legal adviser to the Home Affairs Department, Attie Tredoux, said this week that the board comprised five people who were not government officials and who evaluated applications centrally in Pretoria, but who could delegate responsibility to immigration committees if needs be.
He said that Home Affairs would be reluctant to identify these five people because they needed to be protected from members of the public, who might inundate them with requests for immigration permits. However, this need to protect the current Immigration Board is contradicted by the department’s desire to elect a new Immigration Board through public hearings in a bid to make the immigration selection process more transparent.
The M&G has been contacted by members of the public who say they believe there is no real Immigration Board and that applications for permanent residence are processed by normal departmental officials. Two weeks’ worth of faxes and telephone calls to the department requesting information about the board have not yet prompted clear answers.