Government silent on short-term visa extensions

It’s been two weeks since the Western Cape’s Department of Finance & Economic Opportunities wrote to Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi about tourist bannings, and there’s been no response to provincial Minister Mireille Wenger’s urgent request for an updated directive on short-term visa extensions. In that time, numerous tourists, lawyers and immigration specialists have expressed concern about property owners, swallows, foreign doctors on volunteer programmes and others being banned from SA because their visas had expired and the extensions were not granted in time. The Daily Maverick reports that despite assurances from Tourism Minister Patricia de Lille, the Border Management Authority (BMA) says statements made in Parliament are not equivalent to official policy, so their officials are under strict instructions to comply with a directive issued on 22 December 2023 in which the Department of Home Affairs extended a temporary concession to deal with a backlog of waiver, visa and appeal applications. This directive said that visitors in SA on a short-term visa (90 days or less) who had applied for a visa extension on or before 30 November, and who had not received a renewal outcome by 23 February, should leave SA by 29 February to avoid being declared undesirable. On 15 February, De Lille expanded on the issue, telling SAfm that tourists who had already applied for visa extensions could stay in the country until they had received an outcome. Those who had yet to apply could also still do so.

DM notes that immigration consultant and lawyer Peter Jones said a client departing SA was at first told at the airport that as long as he had a renewal receipt from visa facilitation company VFS Global, he wouldn’t be banned. ‘He had a very tense encounter with the BMA. He is a German citizen and owns a property in SA. He’s here on a visitor’s visa, has applied for an extension and owns property in SA which he is presently renovating, so cannot receive a ban as he must come back soon to supervise the renovations.’ Another tourist had come to Cape Town with his girlfriend to volunteer at Mitchell’s Plain Hospital as emergency medicine doctors. They had applied for short-term visas because the volunteer visa took too long to be issued. ‘Unfortunately, when I left SA, the immigration official stated that these visa extensions were no longer offered and I have been banned for five years,’ said Dr Luke Rothwell.