South Africa has dropped the central processing of long-term visa applications after a six-month trial, due to a series of complaints about the long turnaround time.
Certain countries will be able to visit South Africa visa-free or apply for e-visas.
Until the end of October, all work visa applications for South Africa for a period of longer than three months had to be sent to Pretoria for a decision by the director general of the Department of Home Affairs.
This was trialled for six months, thinking that centralisation would create consistency and avoid corruption.
But according to Business Insider, what previously took between four and eight weeks, now took a minimum of 12 weeks – and some consultants stated that the reality was closer to eight months.
The process has been scrapped from 1 September and long-term work visas will be handled by individual missions abroad, making consular officials responsible once again for deciding who to allow entry into South Africa.
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