The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly affected and continues to affect both the international and domestic travel sectors. Most foreign workers in South Africa have found themselves stranded in South Africa without clarity on when they can leave the country to resume their work activities abroad. Other South Africans have found themselves separated from their families and could not reunite with them until recently.
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted countries worldwide including the implementation of various measures such as international travel bans and “lockdown” to help curb the spread and flatten the curve. Seafarers and superyacht crew working in Schengen countries have been adversely affected and have not been able to return for work purposes as all business and shipping activities have been halted. Many find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place due to expired visas, or visas due to expire, which are requiring urgent renewal before they can return.
One of the biggest headaches of applying for a General Work Visa is arguably obtaining a requisite requirement by supplying a certification from the Department of Labour (“DoL”) in order to prove that the position in question and that have been offered to a foreigner, is unable to be fulfilled by a South African similarly skilled.
South Africa actively promotes investment in its economy, giving benefits to businesspeople ready to invest, those benefits include the unique combination of developed-world infrastructure and logistics networks, a diversified and growing emerging market economy offering low sectoral centration risks and a sophisticated banking sector with a major footprint in Africa.
The work visa application may be argued as a pre-cursor to getting an expatriate into a country, but in reality, the work permit application can only be correctly done after the tax consultation stage. This explains why tax advisors all over Africa are our clients and equally we are the clients of so many tax practices – there is a symbiotic relationship – we need tax sign-off before we can advise our clients on the correct permit category and, by the same token, tax practices require work permit specialists to ensure that their planning and compliance strategies are correctly executed, let alone contradicted by the permit application.
