Work visa for South Africa,

[jhen8305]

Originally Posted by EastLondon

no its frustrating i know. please contact HA for advises or the Immigration lawer. Get second opinion as well. Ive heard 2 absolutely different opinion on my case...

yeah you are right...I am looking for a scrce and critical skill list for 2012...and I can't find a new one... I decided to apply for a quota work permit as for now...

[kalee]

Hello,
I am interested in getting work permit for SA.
As far as I know, Quota Work Permit is available for certain positions.
I tried to find which quotas apply in 2012, but I couldn't find such info on HA webpage. Furthermore, SA embassy in my country informed me that they did not receive quotas for 2012, which would indicate that they were not published - quota work permit is not available anymore

Does anyone know if it is still possible to apply for quota work permit?

I would be very grateful for any answer...

[rakeshr13]

Originally Posted by shadeslayer

Hi everyone, I finally got the Quota Work Permit and am in SA (Joburg) now. I want to thank everyone here for the informative posts and feedback, esp Saartjie and Johanna.

I am giving a summary of what I did to get here, it might be helpful to people starting/going through the same process, esp Pakistanis.

1. First thing to note is that I have a quota work permit. For detailed requirements you should visit SA embassy in your country. In Pakistan SA visa work is handled by Visatronix (subsidiary of TCS). In ISB, there office is in Aabpaara (behind MCB bank).
2. They'll give you a form along with the list of requirements. Medical report (get it from some district government hospital, its easy and fee is nominal). Experience letters, police character certificate, bank statement (showing that you have enough money to survive atleast 3 months in SA). Proof of membership with Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC) if you are an engineer, dont know about doctors or other professionals. And some other documents.
3. They also need and evaluation certificate from South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA). Just fill out the form on SAQA website, transfer the money from any Pakistani bank to SAQA account in SA. And courier this receipt, HEC and Foreign Office attested COPIES of your degree and transcript along with the application form ofcrs to SAQA. Courier will cost you around 6~7k. And SAQA will get it in 3 working days and they'll send you an sloppy written email to confirm. I applied for the urgent 10 days scheme which cost me more. SAQA did complete the process from their end within 10 days or so, but they send back the certificate via Air mail (read South African government post office to Pakistan Post) and it more than a month!!! Anyways I got the tracking number from SAQA (sent an email asking for it) and kept track of the parcel on South African Post Office (SAPO) site and later on Pakistan Post tracking site.

4. Now go to some travel agent and get a temporary reservation of flight from Pak to SA. DO NOT CONFIRM THE TICKET. It is free of charge in Pak, just make a temp booking. Congrats now your documents are ready. Fill the form and go to visatronix office. They will check the documents, submit them and you'll get a receipt. Don't loose it!

5. After about 30 working days (meaning 1.5 months) I got a call from visatronix to come and collect a letter. SA embassy asked me to submit PKR 50k in their account in Standard Chartered Bank, ISB as a repatriation guarantee. Don't worry its all legit. Read about it on internet. I submitted the money and couriered the receipt to SA embassy directly.

6. Now after another 3~4 days I got a call from visatronix to come and collect my passport along with the visa. They returned all my original documents except the SAQA and police character certificate. I asked them to return these too, they said they will return the SAQA but not the police certificate. ITS VERY IMPORTANT get back the SAQA certificate! You'll need it in SA.

7. Take ALL your documents along with you to SA. SAQA, degrees, transcripts etc EVERYTHING. You'll need it here.

8. So assuming you are in SA now. Now you have to find a job and report to Dept of Home Affairs (DHA) within 90days.

9. Assuming you have a job now, so go to DHA office with these documents,
a. SAQA
b. Degrees/transcripts
c. Employment letter and full contract listing your job role and responsibilities. Its very important.
d. Passport/visa copies.
e. proof of registration with some professional body in SA. If you are an engineer, you'll have to join Engineering Council of SA (ECSA)**.
f. You fill up the form* and submit these documents. They'll give you a receipt and tell you to come back after 30 days. And you are done.

*About the form, it has one section that is to be filled by your company (HR or manager). So either try to take some HR guy with you (which I did) or first go and get the form and then go again to submit it.

** ECSA normally takes 6~8 weeks to complete the registration process. Heres the process, if your degree is from Pakistan, you'll first have to go through Foreign Qualification Assessment (no, they don't accept SAQA thingy). So fill out the form*** and take your attested degree/transcripts and your project report hard copy to ECSA office. Yes you read it right, your final year project report. Find it and print it. After you submit the fee (1035 Rands) in their bank account, take the receipt and above documents to ECSA office and they'll give you a letter. This letter will work for DHA. Its states that Mr. X has applied for registration with us which will take 6~8 weeks. Please entertain him at the DHA for this quota work permit etc. It will work.

***This ECSA form from the website says that they need a letter directly from your uni in Pak saying that this guy studied here etc etc. But when I went to ECSA offices, they told me they DONT need it. So don't worry.


P.S. In all of above, where ever I have mentioned attested, and I am talking about something in SA it means that you have go and get it attested from police station. Just go to some police station along with the ORIGINAL and copies. They'll attest it free of charge.

I'll keep updating this thread.

I have been contacted by ECSA with an interview date this month for the qualification assessment personal interview as they said that the outcome depends on the interview. I would like to know the focus of this interview ? will it be focused on my work exp or engineering studies or both ? will there be a written examination of any sort or just a formal meeting to discuss the subjects and my final year project work covered during graduate studies ?

Thanks

[sbghosh05]

Hi there,

Tell me if you dont get registered with ECSA will your quota permit get cancelled, I am asking this because I heard that it is long and difficult process to get registered with ECSA.

[sbghosh05]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi there,

Tell me if you dont get registered with ECSA will your quota permit get cancelled, I am asking this because I heard that it is long and difficult process to get registered with ECSA.

[kiranvarapu]

Hi Saartjie. I want to apply for SA quota work permit. Is it mandatory to have a job offer inorder to apply for quota work permit. If so.... will i get any interview calls from the SA employers? Please help me in this regard... I need your suggestions... Thanks in advance.

[LegalMan]

Saartjie is correct here, and this would probably be the best permit for you to apply for:

There is the General Work Permit which you can apply for. You have to supply a conditional job offer (which you have) from an SA employer together with documentation confirming that the employer has fully endeavored to employ South African citizens or residents before employing you (they actually want you to include an original advertisement for your position from a national printed newspaper or such like to evidence that the company first tried to employ an SA citizen). You must also include your qualifications 'translated' by SAQA. I have heard that it can be hard to get this permit as there are many hurdles to get over in order to satisfy Home Affairs.

In my experience, many companies simply don't know how easy (or difficult) it is to get a permit. I doubt they have "government restrictions", however I wouldn't turn down the offer from them for asking you to do it on your own.