South Africa’s plan to attract more professionals to its skills-starved economy through the introduction of a so-called nomad visa for remote workers has been slowed by the need to amend tax regulations.

The impediment comes after an initial delay when changes to the visa regime had to be temporarily withdrawn because mandatory public consultation procedures hadn’t been followed. President Cyril Ramaphosa announced his intention to introduce a remote-working visa in his 2022 state-of-the-nation address.

“There is just a tax-related matter that needs to be addressed in the regulations,” Leon Schreiber, the country’s Home Affairs Minister, said in a response to queries. “Once that is done, the department will commence with the rollout.”

South Africa’s byzantine work permit regime, which means that securing a work permit can take well over a year, has been flagged as a hurdle to economic growth by both the presidency and the country’s main business organizations.

Still, a backlog of more than 300 000 applications for all kinds of residence permits has been halved since a new cabinet was announced on June 30 after the formation of a coalition government.

The home affairs ministry initially proposed allowing people employed and paid by companies elsewhere to live in the country for as long as six months a year without paying tax, as long as they earned at least R1-million a year.