The gates are agape for gangsters, pimps, washerwomen and gardeners. But teachers, nuclear physicists, nurses and engineers are shunned.
Those who deserve to be barred are freely allowed to enter South Africa, while those whom we should embrace find the path to legal settlement a minefield. Since the government attitude to foreigners is so distinctly schizophrenic, it is unsurprising that the attitude of the general public simmers with xenophobia.
Many rich nations are built on the canny sifting of the world’s human flotsam and jetsam to select the brightest and the best. With globalisation, most modern countries vie to recruit internationally the critical skills needed for economic growth but which they are not able to churn out fast enough themselves.
Canada, for example, has just introduced a programme that allows overseas students to work there for up to three years after graduation. It’s an elegantly clever idea: in a single move it increases the ability of Canadian universities to attract international students — who pay premium tuition fees — then allows cherry picking of exactly the kind of qualified migrants that country wants.
In unhappy contrast, South Africa has arguably the world’s most inept approach to immigration, snarled in a cats cradle of corruption and muddled thinking. While the African National Congress government pays lip service to the need for immigration to alleviate a skills shortage that annually trims growth by a couple of percentage points, it cannot bring itself to do what needs be done.
History and residual resentment ensures that Home Affairs officialdom is none too keen on allowing the entry of skilled whites. After all, the last lot arrived ostensibly to start a refuelling station and then stayed to palm into their pocket the whole country.
Struggle ideology has led to the virtual abandonment of land border controls, which has allowed literally millions of destitute, relatively unskilled Africans to flood into the country. But simultaneously the ANC has a high-minded but futile policy of not encouraging the immigration of skilled workers from elsewhere on the continent, in order not to strip African countries of intellectual capital.
The perverse result is that the SA underclass — a lumpen proletariat lacking education, skills and hope — must compete with economic refugees who are nevertheless better educated and more skilled, as well as so desperate to get a foot on to the jobs ladder that they will work for a pittance. This sparks the sense of grievance that periodically inspires township locals to loot, torch and murder the kwerekwere.
To aggravate matters, Home Affairs officials make it virtually impossible for the genuinely skilled among these African migrants to get permits for legal employment. Consequently one has Congolese chartered accountants working as car guards, Zimbabwean maths teachers facing harassment and deportation, and Nigerian theatre nurses selling mangos at the side of the road.
Oddly enough, Nigerian drug dealers, Zimbabwean cash-in-transit gangs, and Congolese peddlers of blood diamonds somehow have no trouble in procuring residence and work permits.
And equally oddly, when it comes corruption, racism goes out the window. East European and Asian pimps manage to get the Home Affairs stamp of approval as readily as do the dodgy Africans. This week a magistrate expressed naive bafflement that a Brit in a R600-million drug bust had been granted residence despite previous convictions and jail time back home.
Give us your huddled masses, yearning to be free from jail. Send us the wretched refuse of your brothels and drug dens. For a not-so-small fee Home Affairs will organise the paperwork.
But if you are an astrophysicist, piss off. There’s no work here for an honest person.
I can testify to experiencing exactly what this article is exposing. A friend of mine intended coming to South Africa to partner with me to establish an innovative and hi-tech business, which would train and employ a number of people. We went to the SA embassy in New York, where they were most helpful and friendly. Then the documentation was forwarded to South Africa, and the nightmare started. Almost a year later, a work permit was issued after I “convinced” the then Director General to take time off from managing his sports team and do his job. Six years later, when we tried to renew the work permit (as we had successfully done many times before) we were told that the work permit should never have been issued. It should have been a business permit. This matter could be easily corrected: a mere matter of bringing R2 million into the country (and, implied, leaving it here).
Again after a long battle, I succeeded in getting the Director General to intervene, and he wrote a letter to us, waiving the requirement for the investment. This still did not satisfy the official, who (in writing) informed me that she was not going to accept the Director-General’s directive until he “explained” it to her.
This whole process (which was much longer and more painful than can be expressed here) was punctuated by numerous “hints” that we were doing things the “hard” (read “honest”) way…
We now operate from the USA.
Never has the truth been written so well.
why should we employ zimbabwean maths teachers or congolese chartered accountants or nigerian theatre nurses when their countries of origin need them most?
if we employ them, we would also import zimbabwean school dropouts as there would be no teachers in zim, we will import nigerian sick patients seeking better health care.
i applaud the pan african ANC policy of not ‘brain draining’ our brothers from the motherland.however i think they should begin taxing zimbabweans or zimbabwean-educated south africansand put the money into a fund from which SA companies would tap in and invest in zim!
There is a saying which goes:”You cannot impart what you do not possess”. In other words, if you have an inbuilt sense of justice and rational thinking, then your decisions and behaviour should show it.
Bearing the above saying in mind, it should not surprise anyone to read the comment that “South Africa has arguably the world’s most inept approach to immigration” Furthermore, it could be argued too that “history and residual resentment” have absolutely nothing to do with present policies.
One cannot hide behind “history and residual resentment” issues to excuse inept policies. Rational thinking, responsible government and good statesmanship surely are able to rise above history and resentment? It is so easy and convenient to hide and camouflage present policies which are effectively discriminatory in nature behind the popular but invalid “history and residual resentment” smokescreen.
Thank you. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head.
It occurs: does anyone know how many of our poor and out-of-work unskilled South Africans have travelled north in search of work? Do as many of them sell their wares on the side of Nigerian/Kenyan/Ghanaian roads? Why do drug lords find SA so attractive?
To add: I meet, from time to time, several young, qualified South Africans; some PhDs, who cannot find jobs here. How can a criminologist in SA not have a job?
Chatting to a student from a supposedly excellent school, last week, I shocked to hear that, where Science and Maths were compulory subjects two years ago, only about 11 of the Gr 11 pupils are now taking Science. The kid said the majority have moved, this year, to Tourism and Maths Literacy ‘cos Maths and Science are ‘too hard’.
Hello. Welcome to the government of Africa by Africans.
I know – I sound racist. I am not. I am realist.
There are, as you say in the articel, good honest Africans. But the even the good ones who have gotten themselves into key positions have found the lure of short-term gain more attractive than the ‘rhetoric’ (what they may perceive as mere rhetoric) about sustainability, long term growth, and attracting investment, and have become manipulative, conniving, corrupt, and have cleverly exploited whatever key position they are in for personal gain. The result? Your article.
Correct me if I’m wrong.
Thanks for a perceptive blog. This government is apparently hell-bent on ruining this country. Whether by intention or by sheer incompetence, the effect is similar. Because of the numbers involved, the immigration of well-qualified people could hardly pose a political problem to the present government, but the border chaos is a recipe for disaster.
“..is none too keen on allowing the entry of skilled whites. After all, the last lot arrived ostensibly to start a refuelling station and then stayed to palm into their pocket the whole country.”
How true! After many centuries, many of these descendants with white supremacist mindsets, still cling to their culture of entitlement.
Like other developed countries, the SA government has similar immigration categories for professionals of exceptional talent and investors intending to create jobs to benefit the country. Many white immigrant investors invariably end up opposing AA and create opportunities simply to benefit friends and families while siphoning off profits to overseas tax havens. Similarly, most skilled white professionals, ironically end up competing for jobs with local blacks in a country already beset with high unemployment and a contracting economy!!!
Our university program to attract and retain foreign talent, is not working primarily due to our high crime rate and corruption in our Home Affairs giving residency to perpetrators of organized crime and led to the UK, US, Europe etc to clamp down on SA visas due to the risk of terrorist infiltration.
William, SA was the the land of milk and honey for white immigrants for CENTURIES! Why can’t you accept that blacks need to be given a chance now. You seem to spout rhetoric about “skilled Africans” being refused residency but conveniently fail to mention the success SA has in attracting highly skilled Indian computer engineers, Angolan medical professionals, American entrepreneurs, Middle Eastern and Chinese investors…
Excellent piece! I too have had personal experience with this: My German husband fell in love with S.A. and would have loved to live and work there. However, it seems South Africa doesn’t really need good doctors, so here we are, happily settled in the US. As much as I miss my home, I see the prospects for doctors in South Africa aren’t very good; Most likely that’s also the case for astrophysicists and other educated individuals …
I work for a major multinational company and have personal experience of what you describe – getting work permits for our American executives is a nightmare.
This is not incompetence on the part of government – it is part of a very deliberate (but undisclosed) policy.
Your reference to foreign criminals is on the money, too – I can drive into town and point out 10 – 20 Nigerian drug pedlars 24/7 (not too hard – they hang around at certain street corners and all you need to do is to make eye contact)plus a few crack houses – How come the authorities and Police do not take any action?
It is not owing to incompetence – the truth is much more sinister.
The question is – what are we to do about the situation?
Pimps and whores pay their bribes on time.Teachers ,doctors etc. are too smart and they talk, like you. That is bad for business down at the home office.The boys and the girls down at the home office know where their bread is buttered.
Excellent and insightful writing. As an ex-SA now living in Vancouver, Canada I can attest to the yawning chasm between the respective systems of both countries. The SA system’s poisonous fruit is slowly but surely ripening – its output an incompetent population dependent on handouts and crime to stay alive. While what was once a country with a proud vision and a world class infrastructure steadily rots away.
Your ‘government’ is not interested in issues such as the above. On a daily basis, the press illustrates what they are really interested in.
You struck a raw nerve there William. Countries which do not recruit the best from around the world, end up with a begging bowl in hand.
If a country like South Africa were to end up in that predicament, we would call that misrule.
It happened in the Congo – they had that sick habit of calling each and every black African “a brother”. See where brothers took that promising country!
Mpumelelo
I have BAD news for you:
Zimbabwean maths teachers, Congolese chartered accountants and Nigerian theatre nurses are in Australia, Canada etc
And that is when getting into Australia is REALLY difficult.
My partner, an Australian, had no problems getting a visa in SA – by the way.
So, Dave Harris, hopefully the “highly skilled Indian computer engineers, Angolan medical professionals, American entrepreneurs, Middle Eastern and Chinese investors…” will come to your rescue and post some comments here about their experiences.
This entrepreneur and his AMerican entrepreneur partner has posted above, and believe me, that post was watered down. I did not mention how Home Affairs put my partner under house arrest when the work permit that they issued expired, and they were “considering the matter”….”the committee did not meet this week”…and so on..
When the ANC and its supporters remove blinkers and recognise that there is a REAL PROBLEM at Home Affairs (and with crime…and with AIDS…and with health care…and with housing…) the sooner South Africa will start making real progress, and not a perception of progress.
As far as this entrepreneur and his partner goes, we took the hint and left. Sorry, Mr Malema, we did not leave our skills behind, because we did not acquire them in South Africa. However, if you give us your address, we will email them to you.
Well written, Sir.
I am going to add a piece that I picked up elsewhere..and that says it all..except for one addition:…Do you want a future !!
Remember these ANC scoundrels that call themselves a political party, when placing your vote !
Do you want SA to work?
Do you want an honest government?
Do you want proper service delivery?
Do you want jobs?
Do you want houses that won’t fall down?
Do you want clean running water?
Vote DA in 2011 and 2014. It really is that simple.
I have a PhD and unable to secure long term employment at the University of KwaZulu Natal and was told by senior professors to not bother applying as they cannot hire me. UKZN has formal policies that limit the hiring of foreign nationals and of whites. The last post went to a local witha Masters degree thus limiting the number of future graduates possible from the programme. I was willing to stay work for low pay and had an active research programme that included students. I have walked away in disgust and am happily employed in Canada
You all miss the point. Who, with the above mentioned scarce skills would love to work or migrate to a dictorial klepto-cracy with a Kwaito singer as leader. Every one no matter what skill they have, is trying to get out of here.. Goodbye Jules and Jacob Hallo World
I wonder what the influx of Zimbabweans, (some 3,000,000) of them has done to increased food prices in South Africa. Also 3,000,000 less votes against Mugabe are a blessing to him thanks to the ANC. This ANC government is more race based than the nationalist ever were.
You think that we have xenophobia – YOU AIN’T SEEN NOTHING YET. We are sitting on top of an ANC created nuclear bomb. We let anyone into our country, provided they are not white and thereby deprive our own people of jobs of opportunities and employment. Try to get into the USA, or the UK or Europe and see how they protect their own. Not so in South Africa where we don’t care about our own except to tax them into oblivion and then steal the income for a high life style for the Fat Cats.
@Peter L
Absolute garbage!
Americans generally have no problems visiting this country for work or pleasure! Work visas are sometimes problematic due to normal bureaucratic procedures like every country around the world. You obviously lack adequate exposure to the international job market.
“it is part of a very deliberate (but undisclosed) policy”
Yeah, more conspiracy theories from the usual whingers! Next thing you’ll be telling us that the NASA moon landing was a hoax!
Great article. One thing that should be mentioned though is the whole world has similiar problems. I saw 2 bodies washed up on a beach in Spain. Choppers circling at night. Right now the Britsh facist party, the BNP is gaining support on an anti-immigrant grounswell of public opinion. I lived in Ireland for three years – the anti-immigrant rhetoric there was quite astounding – and that was during the boom, I can only imagine the bad feeling towards nigerians and chinese there now. France has had street riots with algerian immigrants, most of whom feel shunned by french society – a lot educated well above the jobs they can get. The southern half of the US is predominantly more and more spanish.
People the world over look for better opportunities, and all countries who are seen to be able to provide a better life are under siege. Unfortunately SA is seen in this light by most africans, and our government is completely inept, I cannot fault your article at all, but from a broader perspective the increasingly overpopulated world will increasingly have these problems.
who asked the bright professionals to try to resettle in SA via the “front door”?
bo boet… the way to do it is to fly from europe/1st world to one of the islands off the east coast, and get on a boat and get off on the beach anywhere between richards bay and port edward…
and then take a taxi/bus/train to pietermaritzburg wher u buy a 2nd hand car which you then drive to our paper-work-brah who hooks u up with a SA-ID book based on your real dob but on the basis of your having come from “the natal coastal division” as your place of birth and residence
next turn up for work at any place that employs people who look like you, and hand in your resignation to make way for a BBBEE appointment, then take your retrenchment letter and go to labour, and find out that there have been no UIF payments made for you – but as a consolation, the helpful staff at DoL will ensure that you get reffered to the CCMA…
but dont go there, just go to another employer with the referral letter from DoL which slates the company that “fired you”) and say, “i would like to get back to work please”
its only if u want to do things by the book and formally and to get a fancy job with a fancy salary package that youre going to have a hard time getting a work permit
@Dave Harris
Now you are resorting to bluster and assumptions. The fact is that there is not one positive post here from a highly qualified “highly skilled Indian computer engineers, Angolan medical professionals, American entrepreneurs, Middle Eastern and Chinese investors…”
As for experience in the international job market, I cannot speak for Peter L, but I can tell you that I do have that. I also have had the misfortune to do consulting work to Home Affairs (which was a dismal failure). Here is a little factoid for you to chew on: most of the officials who have to deal with applications for work permits do not have access to a copy of the regulations AND some of them are NOT ALLOWED to have a copy!
The incompetence and corruption at Home Affairs is beyond international norms. It is beyond belief. The only times they spring into action is when somebody in desperation takes an official hostage or commits suicide.
Would you just say what you wrote aloud, Dave Harris and concentrate while you do? ‘Work visas are sometimes problematic due to normal bureaucratic procedures like every country around the world.’
Our own cannot even get IDs, so they hold officials hostage with toy guns or commit suicide.
Our Home Affairs’ bureaurocratic procedures are like no other, unless it is like Health’s, Education’s, Communication’s, Housing’s, Sport & Recreation’s, SAPS’, Justice’s, Transport’s…
We are, I’m afraid, one of a kind!
This post is one of those that seeks to undermine and denegrate our goverment without the facts. I have no doubt that the writer has never read our immigration policy and compared it with other countries like us. It is always very bad not to put things into perspective.
All semi dictatorial African regimes have expelled or discouraged people of merit, skills, imagination or qualifications. If they did not, they would never be re-elected.
Dave Harris is a twit, defending incompetence and corruption displayed by government officials in South Africa, at present. His blinkers prevent him from seeing the glaring realities. I have worked in the U.K, U.S.A, South-East-Asia as well as various African states. Only in Africa have I been subjected to paying bribe-money for necessary documents. An official in an East African country took it upon himself to visit me on a weekly basis for a hand-out, in spite of the fact that I was in possession of legitimate documents. There was a time when an official who had to sign a release form for certain items, made it clear that he would not do so unless I paid him something under the table. This idiot had me by the balls as he knew what time my flight was departing. Would like to see Dave’s opinion of South Africa in 5 years time. He too, would have jumped ship, simply because any person of fibre finds it difficult to accept conditions akin to the African way. Why live with the frustration?
Spot on Author…
South Africa has arguably the world’s most inept approach to immigration, snarled in a cats cradle of corruption and muddled thinking.
This is why countries are closing their borsders to South Africans wanting to leave too…corruption and the absolutaly inept running of our border and immi, emigration control has gone to pot…
Open the gates and let us in…or is that out?
as my Nigerian friend said – ‘what i love about South Africa is that everything is for sale, even citizenship’
@Noko
“This post is one of those that seeks to undermine and denegrate our goverment without the facts”
Are you seriously trying to deny our chronic skills shortage, or the amount of illegal unskilled immigrants within our borders? Are you delusional?
We had 3 Indian engineering software consultants working for us in PTA – and renewing their work permits was a challenge to say the least. So much that one has left and don’t wish to come back ever again…
Of the other two the DHA does not accept their engineering qualification…
Only more reasons to get my pale male skin out of Zumababwe – just heard that my work permit in Canada has been approved…
And as for skills transfer? None of the BEE candidates at work wish to take over and because of the recession nobody from outside can be employed. So I’m taking my knowledge and experience with me as well, thanks very much Mrs Malema!
@Noko:
You said:”This post is one of those that seeks to undermine and denegrate our goverment without the facts. I have no doubt that the writer has never read our immigration policy and compared it with other countries like us. It is always very bad not to put things into perspective.”
The last sentence is correct. So, let’s put things into perspective, according to the ANC:
HIV does not cause AIDS.
There is no crisis in Zimbabwe.
Crime is not out of control.
ID documents are not for sale.
Skilled immigrants are welcomed with open arms…..well actually with outstretched palms, asking for bribes, to be accurate.
I am glad that the author raises the link between our inept immigration policy and our own country’s xenophobia. I wrote my MA thesis partly on this topic and the reality of the situation is astounding. Aside from the usual racial baggage that any policy discussion in SA dregs up, this is primarily an All Black issue (cheers to the rugby fans). Despite the pan-Africanist language of the policy documents, immigration requirements are kept so strict because of a deep rooted fear of those from Deepest Darkest Africa. Regardless thousands and thousands of people want access to legitimate immigration channels in SA. Many of these of peoples would be economically productive citizens, bring wealth and skills to SA but the restrictions and red tape for legal entry and work are so high that many are forced to live clandestinely in the country. For many bribery is the only viable option. And since the DHA is run badly, the result is easy access for the corrupt and exploitative. The complaints expressed by businessmen looking to hire workers from outside SA or by foreign ‘white’ professionals working in SA are merely the products of a fundamentally rotten system aimed at keeping out Africa’s “unwashed”. A system designed to keep Africans out but so corrupt that the result is exploitation, criminalization and an unremitting cycle of xenophobia inflicted on the thousands of Africans who arrive in this country every year.
The REAL Steve