Cancel Women’s Day: South Africa’s annual insult to women

The South African Parliament's home affairs committee has been presented with an escalating refugee appeals backlog, currently standing at 161,000 cases. This figure rose despite a reported 12% reduction in new applications. Deputy Minister Njabulo Nzuza testified that asylum applications were processed on time upon initial submission, denying the existence of a backlog in this initial stage.

He characterized the true issue as an "unending blue-sky appeal process" that extends the duration of case handling. Standing Committee for Refugee Affairs (SCRA) chairperson Jane Mugwena reported that the review process had met its 93.93% target for the quarter, but she acknowledged the backlog issue persists in the appeals system.

The Refugee Appeals Authority (RA) offered a more dire assessment, noting that active appeals had decreased from 79,870 to 70,976 over the past fiscal year. When accounting for inactive or abandoned cases, as part of a UNHCR-supported initiative, the total caseload amounted to 161,000. This included approximately 90,000 inactive cases.

Critics within the committee questioned the funding behind these figures, expressing concerns about the reliance on UNHCR-funded advocates, whose financial support was slated to end in December. Committee members demanded a clear timeline for clearing the backlog, arguing that the current reliance on percentage reductions was insufficient for meaningful oversight.

The committee agreed to reconvene with the department's chief financial officer to better understand budgetary allocations, staffing, and timeframes before finalizing their report.