New Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber has his work cut out for him. He inherits a ministry drowning in backlogs, corruption, and policy uncertainty. His predecessor, Aaron Motsoaledi, has been shunted back to the Ministry of Health, from which he came.
Schreiber has a golden opportunity to address some of the easy fixes and deliver a quick boost to the economy, setting the tone for the rest of the cabinet.“The first thing I would urge him to do is extend the visa waiver, which expired at the end of June ,” says Stefanie de Saude-Darbandi, an immigration and citizenship law specialist at DSD Attorneys.
“The most pressing issue for the new minister is the blanket waiver enabling long-term visa and waiver applicants to remain in South Africa and exit the country without being banned, which expired at the end of June,” says De Saude-Darbandi. “Nobody believes that anyone could be worse than Dr Motsoaledi, who spent his tenure unsuccessfully defending his decisions in court and wasting billions of rands of taxpayers’ money,” says Chitando.