The COVID-19 pandemic has put a toll on most sectors from health, business, governance, academic, sport and recreation, to cultural activities. At the back of these activities is mobility which enables functionaries in these sectors to discharge duties effectively. Travel, being a hallmark of immigration activity has been paralysed to standstill status with travel restrictions being the order of the day to curb infection probabilities. The result has been the expiry of some VISAs due to the fact that the holders could not travel to the ports of entry to renew them.
The Department answered this call by declaring that VISAs which expired during the currency of the lockdown will not be penalised or the holders declared as undesirable, until 31 July 2020. Further, in response to the risk adjusted approach by the COVID NCC which announced a new regime of regulations, a decision was made to also extend the VISA validity period as the regulations adopted in July limited travel in general and between provinces specifically. On 31 July 2020 the Department of Home Affairs announced the validity extension for legally issues VISAs which expired during the currency of the lockdown, to 31 October 2020.
What does this mean? This means that any legally issued VISA that expired as from the beginning of the COVID-19 restrictions, will be valid until 31 October 2020. This effectively means foreign nationals in the republic on different VISAs can stay despite that some of the VISAs may have expired. However, any foreign national who requires to be repatriated to their home country is free to do so and will not be declared undesirable at the port of entry should the VISA have expired from mid February 2020 to present day , have until 31 October 2020 to tender their temporary visa applications at VFS .
This decision by the Dept of Home Affairs is welcome as it takes due regard to the fact that the travel restrictions are meant to curb the spread of the virus across provinces and national borders. International and inter-provincial travel operators rely on fairly high numbers in a single trip for the service to be viable, which poses a health risk as travellers will fill the vehicle to full capacity, a strong fertile ground for the virus to wreck havoc. To this regard, the NCC announced that inter-provincial and international travel was banned except for foreign nationals who choose to travel back to their home countries. Even be that as it may, hygiene practices are still required and encouraged along those trips. Travel across provinces has however been relaxed for now, due to promising figures showing a slight decline in the infection rates.
