Chair, let me say the same thing now in English: Basically the request is that I should translate what I said. When somebody applies for a visa to work in South Africa, you can't apply for that visa when you are already in South Africa. When you are here in South Africa, how will you explain your presence in the Republic of South Africa? You must explain the reason why you want to come to South Africa.
In big countries like Nigeria, China, Brazil and India, businesspeople and people with scarce and exceptional skills complain that the Department of Home Affairs takes too long to process their applications. The people who know who this person is are in that country, not in South Africa. Therefore, we must build capacity in that country so that we are able to expedite that person's application right in their country of origin.
The first reason why we decided to engage in this programme of outsourcing the processing of the applications for visas is that it will help us to expedite the processing of the applications. Secondly, all countries with which we compare ourselves are engaged in similar programmes with maximum benefits. It will help our programmes to attract foreign nationals to invest in our country or to work in South Africa under the exceptional and scarce skills programme.
This programme will process the applications but the final decision of adjudicating on the person's application will still be done by the officials of the Department of Home Affairs. It wastes time when the official who adjudicates must start from checking whether the person is a businessperson as claimed, has a criminal record or has the qualifications he claims to have. All of those are required as prerequisites before your application is adjudicated. That is what this programme will do.
We are doing it because in big countries it does not help us to centralise these services and do them ourselves. What it ends up doing is frustrating our businesspeople, trade and investment and the companies that are recruiting scarce and exceptional skills. Government ends up being blamed for something that we could have done better like other countries we compare ourselves to. Thank you.