The Department of Home Affairs this week invited corporate employers to apply to take part in the Trusted Employer Scheme (TES) – a fast-track visa applications scheme for senior or vital staff – six years after it was proposed, BusinessLIVE reports.
The scheme was first unveiled in 2017 as an innovative way to make South Africa a more attractive investment destination.
The pilot scheme will fast-track visa applications for senior executives, technical personnel, corporate employees and investors.
The department announced in the Government Gazette that it would soon launch the pilot project as a first step towards full implementation.
According to the announcement, the scheme will ‘allow SA to more easily attract skills and manage immigration, particularly in the processing of applications for senior executives, technical personnel, corporate employees and investors’.
It notes that, to qualify, ‘an employer, investor or business needs to demonstrate that it has the financial strength to employ a foreign national, that it runs training programmes for SA citizens and that it is a good corporate citizen’.