DIGITAL NOMADS
South Africa one step closer to rolling out a remote working visa, says Home Affairs
The government is on track to roll out a remote working visa – but the Department of Home Affairs has not given a date for its full implementation.
The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) says it will meet a June deadline to specify requirements for remote working visas. The department was briefing the Western Cape legislature on remote visas on Wednesday, 3 May.
During the briefing, the department’s Nischal Jaynarayan said a “comprehensive” report on the review of the work visa system had recently been handed over to the Presidency by former DHA director-general Mavuso Msimang, who was tasked in 2022 by President Cyril Ramaphosa to review of the visa system. In his State of the Nation Address (Sona) in February 2022, the president said the review was “exploring the possibility of new visa categories that could enable economic growth, such as a start-up visa and a remote working visa”. In his Sona 2023 speech, the president said: “We will also be introducing a remote worker visa and a special dispensation for high-growth start-ups.”
The remote working visa came under the spotlight during Wednesday’s meeting of the provincial Standing Committee on Finance, Economic Opportunities and Tourism, which learnt that the DHA is in the process of completing an implementation plan for its introduction.
One of the recommendations of Msimang’s report – which fell under Operation Vulindlela, a massive project by the government to accelerate structural reform and support economic recovery – is the introduction of new visa categories to cater for remote workers and start-ups.
Jaynarayan told the committee a new visa category such as a start-up visa or remote working visa could enable economic growth.
On the DHA’s side, the changes would mean the DHA would have to specify visa requirements for remote workers – including the specific requirements for partners or children. The DHA also needed to specify visa eligibility for start-up founders and amend certain sections of the Immigration Act. The timeframe for the DHA to complete this would be three months.
Jaynarayan said the new visa categories would be included in the revised immigration regulations to be published “by the end of June”, subject to State Law Adviser approval as well as public comment.
When asked by committee member Isaac Sileku (DA) if the DHA would meet the three-month deadline, Jaynarayan said “we are still on target for now”. He said the target was not ambitious; if people worked “efficiently and quickly”, the target would be met.
In response to a question by committee chairperson Cayla Murray about when and how people would be able to apply for the visa, Jaynarayan said the department would announce when applications would be opened as “we move through the legislative process”. DM
A step in the right direction, but why has it taken so long for the government to deal with skills shortages ? Hopefully the next step will be to do away with BEE regulations. Sout Africa must be the only country with this pointless regulation.
A remote working visa for anyone who can work remotely without electricity or an internet connection might just revive the carrier pigeon industry.
Sounds like a red herring and a distraction from the real issues affecting the country.
Quite likely will be end of June 2024. This is so necessary but when the people issuing the visas have no real idea how business’s operate and what skills are already missing in South Africa why would they think that this is urgent? So many jobs and business opportunities lost because we have the wrong people trying to do a job for which they are inadequately trained.
Why must BEE ,which stops investors wanting to invest in South Africa, still be maintained ? Just think of the mass immigration of skilled people who could have created masses of jobs for all South Africans if there were not this ridiculous requirement in a country where the majority already exceed the minority by 90%. Who do the ANC think that BEE is protecting? Jobs are being lost not created by BEE.
Why can’t they even do what they have on their plate now? Time to ask how much bigger their backlog is now. Their target date of June 2024 has not changed but the backlog has been growing. They are still living in their cosy nests in cloud cuckoo land.