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Home affairs sued over permit delay for hundreds of foreigners

ERNEST MABUZA

Published: 2011/02/10 06:25:47 AM

AN IMMIGRATION practitioner has filed another lawsuit against the Department of Home Affairs, asking the North Gauteng High Court to direct the department to adjudicate and finalise the applications of more than 700 foreigners in 31 permit categories.




This application was launched on Tuesday, the same day Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma indicated that she did not want immigration practitioners to be involved in representing applicants in the home affairs offices.


However, the practitioners believe they are necessary to help applicants navigate the processes at the department and to help reduce the backlog of applications.




The application, by Leon Isaacson, follows one filed in Cape Town on Friday by immigration lawyer Gary Eisenberg on behalf of more than 400 permit applicants against the department for its failure to adjudicate temporary residence permit applications.




In his founding affidavit, Mr Isaacson said that in the past, temporary residence and other applications took up to 30 working days to finalise.


He said applications were submitted at regional offices all over the country where applications were adjudicated and finalised. Applicants or immigration practitioners acting on their behalf would then collect the permits from the regional offices where they had applied for them.




He said that in December 2009, the department decided to centralise the adjudication of applications to a hub at the home affairs head office in Pretoria.




"It is my opinion as an immigration practitioner … that the hub was not properly set up before the applications began being sent there," Mr Isaacson said.


As a result, " hundreds, if not thousands, of applications were lost, became untraceable or took months to finalise. In June 2010 the hub simply did not have enough officials to deal with the large amount of administration that was required of it."




He said permit applicants could not work, study, do business, travel or be with their loved ones due to the department was taking an inordinate amount of time to finalise applications.




"Senior personnel of multinational corporations are unable to receive their salaries as they do not have work permits. They cannot open bank accounts for the same reason. Businesses who wish to bring workers from abroad to contribute to the economic growth of the country are unable to do so," Mr Isaacson said.




"Applicants may also be arrested and in many instances are refused bail because they are illegal foreigners not due to any fault of their own."


Departmental spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa said last night his legal department had not received papers on the North Gauteng High Court matter.


On the Cape application by Mr Eisenberg, Mr Mamoepa said the matter had been set down for later this month and the department would respond accordingly.








mabuzae@bdfm.co.za

http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=133875  accessed 7 March