The Covid-19 pandemic and the Disaster Management Act have significantly slowed down South Africa’s Home Affairs processes to a crawl – impacting thousands of people and creating a backlog that could take years to clear.
While the Department of Home Affairs was mandated to limit services at the onset of the State of Disaster in March last year, the Department has been slow and inconsistent in resuming services, and potentially tens of thousands of people will be negatively impacted as a result.
Currently, only visa related services are being rendered, with no permanent residence or citizenship-related services being permitted.
