Prior to Covid-19 visa applications submitted from within South Africa typically had a processing period of approximately 10 weeks. It was a very rare occurence that the visa processing period took any longer than this. This was considered an acceptable processing period, and the fact that it could be relied upon not to exceed the 10 week period allowed applicants to plan their lives accordingly. Visa applications that were submitted abroad at South African Embassies normally took about 4 - 6 weeks to be processed.

The onset of Covid-19 and the fact that most Department of Home Affairs staff now worked from home saw the processing times escalate significantly, and it was not uncommon for a visa application to take approximately 5 months to be processed.

Now that we are coming to the end of Covid-19, and staff are returning to work it was hoped that visa processing times would return to the original 10 week time frame. However the exact opposite has happened. All long term visa applications are now taking well in excess of 5 months to be processed and even up to a period of 12 months.

The reason why visa applications are now taking so long to be processed is that a centralised adjudication system has been introduced at Department of Home Affairs. This means that all visa applications, whether submitted from within South Africa at one of the VFS offices or abroad  at a South African Embassy, are now processed at the Head Office in Pretoria. Prior to this centralisation the processing of visa applications that were submitted at a South African Embassy abroad was done by the staff at the particular Embassy.

The reasoning behind this change is laudable in that it is to ensure consistency and uniformity in processing of visa applications. Previously consular officials often applied their own rules to visa applications and requested documents that were not required in terms of the Immigration Act. The result of the inconsistency is that an applicant may receive a visa that he was not entitled to or may not receive a visa that he was entitled to depending on the vagaries of the consular official.

However the immediate result of the centralised processing is that Department of Home Affairs staff have been swamped with a significant number of new applications that previously would have been processed at the South African Embassies. This has resulted in significant delays in the processing of all long term visa applications. Furthermore it has become impossible to estimate how long a particular visa application will take to be processed and many applicants are now stuck in South Africa with their previous visa haing expired, but their new or renewal application not yet having been processed. The situation is quite frankly unacceptable and due to poor planning by the Department of Home Affairs.