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Tens of thousands of foreign executives, engineers and other key workers have endured a year-long wait for South African visas that business groups say is costing investment and threatening the country’s position as a continental hub.
Already suffering from lackluster growth and high unemployment, the government has acknowledged that a skill shortage is throttling development.
And a huge backlog in visa processing has worsened the problem.
Long visa waits are common in much of the world but South Africa has some of the biggest jams, business groups say.
“We have various cases of people who have been waiting for more than a year,” said Pamina Bohrer, secretary general of the Italian-South African Chamber of Trade and Industries.
Besides the “psychological stress” caused to families whose lives are put on hold, firms are suspending or scrapping expansion plans in the country, she said.
“The backlog is staggering,” Busisiwe Mavuso, head of Business Leadership South Africa, which groups dozens of international companies including BP, Nestle and Unilever, wrote in a newsletter in November.
“The fact that companies can’t fill the positions means they can’t invest and expand.”
Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi told a parliamentary committee in September that severe understaffing meant 74,000 applications for all types of visas were awaiting processing.
