'lllegal workers case is a non-story'

Telecommunications conglomerate ZTE Corporation has dismissed as a “non-story” claims that it is using illegal Chinese immigrants to deliver a R2,9-billion contract to mobile phone company Cell C.

The turnkey contract, to roll out Cell C’s 4G network, stipulates that ZTE is an independent contractor and responsible for its own recruitment policies and processes. 

But last Thursday immigration officials and police raided ZTE’s premises in Durban, Cape Town and Bloemfontein, arresting 16 foreign workers for not possessing valid work permits.

ZTE’s contract manager, Cristobal Fuentes de la Torre, told the Mail & Guardian that although 16 workers were initially held, passports were obtained from the offices and after an hour-and-a-half 13 were released.

The passports of the remaining three workers were in the hands of an immigration practitioner in Johannesburg, where a work visa was being added to an already valid 90-day business visa.

That process takes two to three days.

Decentralised system
In the Cape Town raid, one arrested employee was found to have a visitor’s visa. Fuentes de la Torre said this could be attributed to the employee having a poor grasp of English and not understanding that the visa was not adequate. The visa “was spontaneously rectified by home affairs on Tuesday”.

He said that at the time the company had applied for visas from the South African embassy in Beijing the system was decentralised and applications were sent to different offices around the country. However, in mid-process, the system was centralised in Pretoria.

After the initial reports, Cosatu expressed outrage at the use of illegal immigrants to work in South Africa, pointing out that the Chinese workers were said to be massively undercutting South African wage levels. But Fuentes de la Torre said this did not apply at ZTE: “There are strict compliance rules and corporate responsibility.”

He said the workers in question were “very skilled”. “They rent houses, they hire cars and they eat. They bring value to the South African economy.”

While specialists, mainly from China, are installing Cell C’s high-speed network, Fuentes de la Torre said future phases of the project would use a workforce that was 70% South African.

He would not comment on South Africa’s immigration policy, but said that Canada and Australia demonstrated the effectiveness of allowing employers to use skilled foreigners.