SA Home Affairs Minister Announces Changes To Expedite Work Permits For ZEP Holders
South Africa’s current Minister of Home Affairs, Leon Schreiber, has announced a new technical directive intended to expedite the work permit application process for Zimbabwe Exemption Permit (ZEP) holders.
In 2022, the then-Minister of Home Affairs, Aaron Motsoaledi, introduced a waiver allowing ZEP holders to apply for mainstream work visas without first securing certifications from the Department of Labour and the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA).
This waiver was aimed at facilitating a smoother transition for ZEP holders as the exemption programme was set to be phased out.
However, Schreiber has acknowledged that the waiver for the SAQA certificate requirement was mistakenly omitted from the notifications sent to ZEP holders at the time.
To rectify this, the necessary amendment was officially published last Wednesday. Said Schreiber:
This defeated the purpose of the waiver, as it created a bottleneck with home affairs officials unsure of how to process the applications.
A legal opinion further confirmed that this oversight needed to be corrected through a technical amendment issued via a circular.
Thanks to this correction, we hope to speed up the process of migrating away from the ZEP towards mainstream work visas for applicants who contribute to the economy and qualify in terms of the law.
It should be noted that the waiver only enables ZEP holders to submit applications more speedily and does not influence the subsequent outcome of any application.
All relevant criteria must still be met for a specific application to be successful.
Schreiber also said the substantial backlog of visa applications, which stood at 306,000 at the end of May.
To address this, the department’s “backlog team” is now working in two daily shifts to mitigate the delays.
Currently, about 178,000 ZEP holders, who are authorised to live and work in South Africa, face a looming deadline as their permits are set to expire by 2025.
More: Pindula News
