On 11 April 2023, the Minister of Home Affairs, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, waived the following requirements for temporary and permanent residence applications -
Radiological Reports:
Previously a radiological report needed to be obtained to show proof that the applicants' lungs were clear of tuberculosis (TB). This report had to be submitted in original form and could not be older than six (6) months on the day of submission. In some cases, this became a health concern for some as they were of the opinion that too many x-rays could cause cancer.
To confirm - a medical certificate must still be obtained from a general practitioner.
Police clearance certificates:
As per Immigration law, police clearances had to be submitted from every country where the applicant resided for 12 months or longer since his or her 18th birthday. This is still the case, except now, the applicant must only submit a police clearance from countries where he or she resided 12 months and longer for the last five (5) years. This change means if you resided in South Africa for the last 5 or 6 years, you are only required to submit a South African police clearance. NO police clearance from your country of origin would be required as this would have accompanied your first long-term visa application.
Police clearance requirements also brought some concern to those who simply could not obtain a police clearance from a country where they (maybe) resided 30 years ago or needed a certain document to apply of which they completely lost.
The conditions of this new directive are effective from 11 April 2023. Our advice would be to add a copy of said directive to the visa application just to be safe.
Lastly, as the directive also addresses Consular Sections and the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO), the same is applicable to all South African missions abroad and not just the VFS offices in South Africa.
Should you require any further information about this new directive, please reach out to us via our Contact Form on www.movingsouthimmigration.com or via telephone / email on +2773 5357 534 and sue@movingsouthimmigration.com
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