Home Affairs Minister Dr Leon Schreiber is confident that the department will be able to clear the 300 000-plus visa backlog by December, as he looks to tackle key issues facing the entity and position it as an enabler of economic growth.

This was highlighted by the new Minister at an engagement with business and key stakeholders, hosted last week by visa consulting service Xpatweb.

Schreiber said that discerning the scale and causes of the backlog was complicated as a result of the department’s system being extremely fragmented, with paper-based applications and moving parts scattered across the world.

Schreiber highlighted that there was a dedicated team working on addressing the backlog and said he was optimistic that “there will be no backlog by Christmas”.

He also emphasised that work must not stop at addressing this backlog, but rather, that it should be used as a springboard to improve processes moving forward.

This would entail measures such as increased technology use and automated processes in the department’s system.

In this vein, Schreiber said the department must pursue a proof of concept, to be able to demonstrate that it can automate its processes and, most importantly, automate adjudication where decisions are made in the system.

He also underlined the importance of collaboration and buy-in from the private sector and called for them to support this and the visa reforms being undertaken.

In outlining his plans for the department over the next five years, Schreiber said that these would focus on three key areas, namely, ensuring that civic services were delivered efficiently and effectively; shoring up its role in national security; and enabling economic growth, investment, tourism and skills attraction.

He pointed out that the latter was an area of the department that had not been properly capitalised on.

Schreiber emphasised that, without neglecting the other two areas, the department would be seeking to streamline the process of bringing highly skilled workers to the country.

He posited that studies had shown that attracting highly skilled workers – of which there was a shortage in the county – had the potential to increase the country's GDP and unlock more job opportunities.

He highlighted that the country must pursue such interventions in the short term to address the high unemployment rate.

Schreiber said that the importance of this was understood broadly at a government level, with President Cyril Ramaphosa previously stating that where the country did not have the requisite skills available immediately, it must attract people with the appropriate qualifications and experience; and that government would continue with the visa reforms introduced in the last few years, attract skills and investment, and grow the tourism sector.

Meanwhile, Xpatweb MD Marisa Jacobs said that an issue the company had picked up was that visa processes were often not done correctly. This was evidenced by many of the company’s clients’ visas being rejected initially but granted after an appeals process.