A simple image of mismatched effort for when a house is burning is a fitted one here. In this opinion our CEO, Claudia Pizzocri, published on Daily Maverick, she argues that while the Department points to initiatives, concessions and reform gestures, the underlying administrative fire still rages.
Immigration Directive 7 of 2026 should not be read as proof of control, but as further evidence of a system in prolonged distress, where temporary relief measures are being used to manage what is, in truth, a deeper crisis of institutional capacity and lawful administration.
Some extracts below:
Freshly published Immigration Directive may yet pass into history not as a concession, but as a confession. Read plainly, this directive is an official admission that the Department of Home Affairs still cannot finalise large volumes of waiver, long-term visa and appeal applications timeously.
The directive concedes that key categories of applications remain unresolved and then extends temporary relief for affected applicants until 30 June 2027. That date alone is an admission of enduring institutional incapacity.
If readers found themselves blinking at “2027”, they would not be alone. It is the sort of date one instinctively assumes must be a typographical slip. It is sadly not. The timeline forecast for a resolution has become a moving target beyond any plausible expectation. The message is unmistakable: the status of foreigners in SA increasingly depends not on predictable administration, but on whether one happens to fall inside or outside the latest administrative grace period.
Read on Daily Maverick the opinion in full here.
by Claudia Pizzocri, CEO at Eisenberg & Associates Inc.