Migrant bungling by home affairs officials hampers job creation

Source: Business Times, 13/10/2017

The Department of Home Affairs is duty-bound under administrative law
to process overdue applications within a reasonable time

After two successive quarters of decline, the South African economy
spluttered back to life in the second quarter with 2.5% GDP growth
quarter on quarter.
However, the country’s inability to stimulate job creation is putting
it on a collision course with a sustained recessionary period, which
spells disaster.
The unemployment rate is at a 14-year high. A staggering 9.3-million
people who wanted work were unable to find it in the first quarter.
The National Development Plan’s ambition to reduce unemployment to 14%
by 2020 is battling against a public sector partly paralysed through
corruption, and a private sector nervously assessing the increasingly
tense socioeconomic situation. Job creation is at a standstill.
Yet the Department of Home Affairs is hampering highly skilled
international migrants’ ability to create new businesses that can
drive job creation and economic growth. Migrants from outside the UK
and EU make up 25% of London’s workforce and contribute £83bn, more
than a third of the South African economy a year to the city’s
economy. A study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development found that "skilled immigrants contribute to boosting
research and innovation, as well as technological progress".
In a case representing more than 473 applicants for visa, permit and
citizenship applications heard on August23, the department performed
extraordinary legal and bureaucratic acrobatics to obfuscate, delay,
impede and frustrate our efforts to bring relief to the applicants’
efforts to continue to live, work and study lawfully in SA.
These are people who have lived and worked in the country for years,
have husbands and wives, children and careers, people who contribute
economically and socially to the prosperity of the country. Due to the
department’s arrogance and dismissive attitude, they are now unable to
open bank accounts, travel or rent property. They face the constant
risk of deportation or criminal records.
The Department of Home Affairs is duty-bound under administrative law
to process overdue applications within a reasonable time. However,
applications are being unduly delayed, some for more than four years.
The human and economic cost of this failure in constitutional duty is
immense. In a similar case in 2012 concerning the delay in processing
permanent residence applications of 105 applicants, Acting Judge
Judith Cloete found that the department had "dealt with the
applications… in a manner which can only be described as
‘administrative bungling’" and that "the lives of 105 foreigners… hang
in the balance until the respondents get their house in order".
By failing to conduct its affairs in accordance with the
constitutional values of accountability, responsiveness and openness,
the department is causing a great deal of prejudice to countless
individuals across SA. The only recourse left to these people is to
approach the courts, which is an expensive and lengthy process many
can ill afford.
Policy ‘based on an approach that is largely static … rather than to
managing international migration strategically’
In its white paper on international migration, the department states
that the current policy on international migration "does not enable SA
to adequately embrace global opportunities" and that it is "based on
an approach that is largely static and limited to compliance rather
than to managing international migration strategically to achieve
national goals".
The Department of Home Affairs is failing to live up to its own
ambitions for international migrants to become key drivers of SA’s
success and global competitiveness. Its failure to award permanent
residence and critical-skills visas is costing SA dearly.
Department officials in SA and at foreign missions refuse to recognise
powers of attorney and the right of foreigners to effective legal
representation.
This latest development goes beyond bureaucratic and procedural issues
plaguing the department. By infringing on these applicants’ common law
right to appoint attorneys as their legal representatives, the
department has enabled the worst of its officials to abuse their
powers and prey on people who lack understanding of SA’s legal system.
The department should reconsider its approach to applications made in
SA and abroad, and start managing the influx of highly skilled workers
more efficiently and strategically for the benefit of SA.
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