Home Affairs sets five immigration service targets for 2025

The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) is continuing its drive for increased efficiency.

Focusing on the immigration and civil service departments, DHA has placed its commitments to speeding up certification and visa processing on record.

The department presented the 2024 Budget Review and Recommendations Report (BRRR) to parliament on 25 October.

Five immigration targets

Making South Africa a business destination of choice is among the key objectives outlined by Minister Leon Schreiber.

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To achieve this, his ministry emphasised the need to modernise documentation and speed up the digital queues foreign visitors were subjected to.

The DHA’s immigration service targets for the 2024/25 financial year are:

• To have 85% of permanent residence applications for critical skills, general work and business to be collected within South Africa adjudicated within eight months
• To have 95% of critical skills visa applications made in South Africa processed within four weeks
• To have 90% of business visa applications made in South Africa adjudicated within eight weeks
• To have 90% of general work visa applications made in South Africa adjudicated within eight weeks
• To lead 2,000 law enforcement operations or inspections for target areas. This number includes a target of 800 spaza shops and 460 restaurants.

Civil service targets

Queuing at Home Affairs offices across the country had become synonymous with hours wasted in line.

For South Africans and naturalised persons, the DHA aims to:

• Ensure at least 750,000 births are registered within 30 days
• Issue 2.5 million smart ID cards to persons 16 years old or older
• Issue 90% of machine-readable live-captured adult passports within 13 working days
• Issue 90% of machine-readable live-captured child passports within 18 working days

Corruption and human resources

Other department-specific targets include resolving 70% of misconduct cases within 90 working days and finalising 80% of reported fraud and corruption cases within 90 working days.

Additionally, the DHA is aiming for the digitisation of 27.8 million civic records and the rollout of online birth registration at 95 priority facilities.

The immigration targets are for administrative functions. No targets were given for deportations.

However, the report stated that 39,627 deportations were carried out in the 2023/24 financial year, up from 22,560 in 2022/23 and the highest since 29,376 in 2019/20.  

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