Security fixation and inept officials deter foreign skills

Source: Business Day, 10/12/2015

SA NO longer has an immigration policy. This is not a criticism, but a
fact. On May 26 last year, when the Immigration Act was amended, an
entirely new paradigm of immigration regulation came into operation,
unprecedented in its inflexibility and in its exclusionism. This is
not a phenomenon that appeared out of nothing; it emerged from a
history of administrative corruption, the violation of SA`s borders
and the government`s frustrated response to it.


The foundation of this frustration lies in its realisation that
perhaps 15%-20% of SA`s permanent resident population are imposters.
These are foreigners who misrepresented themselves as offspring of at
least one South African citizen parent, or who acquired permanent
residence documents by fraud. It was a common practice for foreigners,
mostly from neighbouring countries, to falsely represent themselves by
affidavit as the unregistered offspring of South African parents and
thereby easily have their births registered with the Department of
Home Affairs. More stringent protocols making these late birth
registrations more difficult came much later.


It was also common to acquire the right to permanent residence through
misrepresentation, bribery and fabrication. These practices occurred
when decision-making was decentralised to the provinces.


Today, these impersonators use South African identity documents and
are accepted as native members of our population.


Added to this corroded landscape was the issue of false South African
passports. The British government imposed visa requirements on South
African passport holders in 2008 after concluding that our government
could not adequately resolve the lapses in passport securitisation.
As foreign affairs minister, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma bore the brunt of
British dissatisfaction with the corruption within the home affairs
directorate responsible for issuing passports. When she became home
affairs minister in 2008, she pushed to eradicate corruption and
restore law and order. In May 2010, all decisions on immigration
applications were centralised at home affairs` headquarters in
Pretoria, and a security cordon began to be spun around that hub.


Since the systems were not properly in place when the
centralisation project began, 60%-70% of all applications were lost.
This trend continued into 2011.


With a flood of litigation ensuing to resolve the paralysis, it became
clear how deep-rooted the administrative bungling was. By then the
conservative "old-style" public service had haemorrhaged from home
affairs, leaving a public administration largely uneducated and
inexperienced, which became a glaring deficit when more complicated
regulations came into force.


The amendments to the Immigration Act in 2011 made it clear that
immigration policy was rapidly evolving into a border security policy.
The cost of inefficiency within the department, coupled with an
increasingly intolerant administrative attitude, began to encroach on
foreigners like never before. This trend was reinforced by the
department`s inclusion into the so-called security cluster. Human
trafficking became a central focus of immigration control, distorting
and replacing home affairs` previous emphasis on facilitating the
entry of foreign workers, entrepreneurs and retirees.


The amended Immigration Act with its regulations were published on May
22 last year, with a commencement date of May 26, leaving the public
with one business day to prepare for the extensive changes the
amendments brought in. Once this regime commenced, it was not until
mid-June that applications could be submitted through the global firm,
VFS, which had been contracted by home affairs to serve as its "front
counter". The new system has few redeeming characteristics, in terms
of either substance or the manner in which the department has applied
it. For example:


• It is no longer possible to engage directly with the department by
placing immigration applications before it. At a substantially added
expense, all foreigners are forced to submit their applications and
administrative appeals personally through VFS in SA, or at VFS and
consular offices internationally. The inconvenience and expense of
personal applications, especially in Asia and Russia, has caused a
loss of more than R4.4bn in tourism revenue.


• Foreigners, including foreign spouses of South Africans, can no
longer apply for visas in SA while on visitor`s visas.


• Foreigners can no longer apply for "general" work visas, or
extensions of existing visas, without obtaining clearance from the
Department of Labour, which does not support the employment of
foreigners. For this reason, the general work visa category is largely
paralysed. While the productivity of SA`s labour force has dwindled to
its lowest in 40 years, the Labour Department protects the South
African labour market from the entry of skilled foreigners,
contributing to SA`s increasing uncompetitiveness.


• The immigration system does not support work visas in the humanities
(including chefs, teachers, lawyers, philosophers, political analysts,
development consultants, business consultants, productivity analysts,
business and production managers), or exceptionally skilled foreigners
who do not have predetermined "critical skills".


• More than 50% of all immigration applications have been refused,
although many comply with the regulations, forcing foreigners to
appeal at a charge by VFS of R1,350 per submission. There are delays
of between five and 12 months in processing such appeals, rendering
the process nugatory. Foreigners awaiting the outcome of their
applications or appeals after the expiry of their visas cannot leave
SA without being declared "undesirable" and prohibited from returning
for up to five years. While they can appeal, these are generally
either denied or take up to six months to be adjudicated.


• The competence of consular officials at SA`s foreign missions is
generally low, and at many missions arrogance and xenophobia are
frequently encountered (including in Berlin, Moscow, Harare and
Nairobi).


• The immigration regulatory regime is too bureaucratic to entice
foreign skills and entrepreneurs in the international competition for
skills and foreign investment.


Prof Edmund Ferreira of Unisa has found that since 1967, "output per
worker per unit of capital in SA has fallen from R7,297 to R4,924 a
year — a decline of 32.5%. From its peak in 1993, this measure of
labour productivity has fallen by 41.2% … to the lowest level in 46
years.


"SA is now less efficient than many of its emerging market
competitors, its labour force is uncompetitive and labour productivity
is much lower than that of the rest of the developing world."


Until Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba realises that SA needs an
immigration policy that is flexible and encourages the inflow of
self-sufficient, entrepreneurial and skilled immigrants, we will be
unable to compete in the modern world.