Home affairs foils  ‘SA open for business

Source: Mail & Guardian, 22/03/2019

Not only was the department a target of state capture during the
Zuma era, the cabal of the department’s leadership also remains
firmly in place, steadily tightening immigration control against
even the most qualified of people.
Retirees who have traditionally spent billions of rands in foreign
currency are routinely barred if they do not receive pensions, or
are not of retirement age. Critically skilled, degreed foreigners
are excluded from general management positions without any
justifiable grounds. Their applications are rejected again and
again, under the same cookie-cutter pretexts.

Meanwhile, business visa applications for entrepreneurs are sunk
in hyper-bureaucracy and corruption on an industrial scale that
continues to prevail with total impunity.
There are probably more fabricated visas in circulation than visas
acquired lawfully, because to acquire a visa lawfully takes
persistence, inconvenience, tireless patience and perhaps an
administrative appeal or two. Most healthy-minded foreigners would
rather pay a fee for a fabricated sticker in a passport than go
through the emotional strain of acquiring the simplest visa
through legal channels.
As a consequence of this administrative collapse â€` and, if not
collapse, then entrenched xenophobia â€` foreigners have never
before litigated against the department in such numbers for the
smallest benefit. Even then, the department does not comply with
court orders. The state attorney’s office has been transformed
into a Kafkaesque bulldog that defends even the most indefensible
claims of the department, at any cost. Ultimately, the taxpayer
carries the burden of the state’s bureaucratic malfeasance.
This has been the reality since Jacob Zuma succeeded in
repositioning the locus of power in the executive authority â€`
including the public administration â€` divesting both the
legislature and the judiciary of their pre-eminence.
Noncompliance with court orders is now the norm, not the
exception. So the rule of law is on the back burner and government
officials enjoy unbridled power.
During the Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki years, judicial review
was always a last resort. Government was responsive and amenable
to compromise, and safeguarded valuable cases for judicial
resolution. When Zuma was president he succeeded in defrocking the
judiciary to protect himself and his system of patronage from the
slightest challenge.
It was Zuma’s Cabinet, too, that adopted the white paper on
international migration for South Africa, published in July 2017.
A careful reading of the document reveals that its foundations are
too weak to support a reformulation of immigration policy for
South Africa, a view that I conveyed in the Mail & Guardian in
November last year.
The white paper contains atrocious falsities and has no
foundations in empirical data. Ramaphosa’s Cabinet should keep it
in abeyance until such time as policymakers have conducted the
necessary research and analysis, and are able to arrive at their
conclusions in a rational manner.
A sensible approach would be for Ramaphosa to establish a
committee of immigration advisers as a parallel think tank to the
department of home affairs’ leaders. The latter grouping has never
succeeded in running an efficient immigration system, or in
formulating an immigration policy based on empirical evidence, in
the best interests of this country and its economy. The white
paper is founded on this very observation.
A November 2018 World Bank study does, however, provide evidence
of the economic benefits of in-migration.
The report shows that immigrants had a positive effect on jobs and
wages in South Africa between 1996 and 2011, and highlights their
tendency to increase opportunities for locals and contribute to
economic growth.
Everything from Somalian kiosks on street corners and Bangladeshi
spaza shops in townships to small and mid-sized Swiss engineering
companies, Italian restaurants, Turkish marble importers and
multinational corporations is an economic stimulator. Each of
these types of entities use and pay for infrastructure, employ
South Africans, pay tax, purchase goods and services from South
African suppliers, and even introduce large amounts of foreign
currency that benefit our low foreign reserves.
The World Bank study underlines the importance of political will
for furthering policies based on empirical evidence, not
entrenched political and financial interests.
Without proper analysis, positive socioeconomic outcomes are
beyond the reach of locals and foreigners alike.
Any attempts at building an intelligent immigration system for
this country tend to be hijacked by national security concerns. It
does not help that the current minister of home affairs, Siyabonga
Cwele, was Zuma’s first state security minister.
State security and the securitisation of our borders is only one
dimension of an effective immigration system.
The building of an economically beneficial immigration policy
depends on its decoupling from national security.
Similarly, while the rule of law remains so deeply imperilled in
terms of the processing and adjudication of immigration and
citizenship applications, South Africa cannot be considered “open
for business”.
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