Non-compliance with immigration laws when sending employees on assignment can have severe consequences fo international businesses. We look at when it makes sense to opt for a good quality service provider.

Whenever the question of outsourcing business processes is presented to clients the question of cost is always a factor that is paramount rather than the question of risk. The viability of corporations outsourcing the administrative process to external service providers seems to always be in question more especially when it comes to issues such as immigration services, the processing of work permits, study permits and visitors permit applications for foreigners in the company’s employ along with their families.

Immigration is often perceived as a laborious, administrative intensive process, which can be handled by junior administrators within the organisation.  The need and additional cost of outsourcing the service is therefore perceived to be unnecessary.

Weighing up risk against cost

In the past three years South Africa has had two changes to its immigration legislation.  The first major change occurred in April 2003 with the promulgation of the Immigration Act No 13 of 2002, which repealed and replaced the Aliens Control Act.  This change was implemented with the intention of simplifying the immigration process thereby attracting the much needed skills and knowledge to the country. 

The legislation was designed to make provisions for various categories of workers.  A common category of work permit was the intra-company transfer work permit in terms of which individuals could be transferred to South Africa from various companies within the same global group for a period of two years. 

This category's requirements were far simpler than the other work permit categories leading it to be the preferred choice amongst most global companies.  The only issue with this permit category was that the maximum duration was two years and the permit could not be extended at the end of the two-year period.

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