EMSIE FERREIRA, Cape Town | Wednesday
SOUTH Africa is revamping its immigration laws to make it easier for foreigners to work in the country, but employers will have to pay a special tax on their salaries in many cases.
Elderly foreign nationals will also find it easier to retire in South Africa under the bill, which a government adviser said had been approved by cabinet and was expected to be passed by parliament before the end of the year.
It will allow foreigners under the age of 25 to work in South Africa for one year in any field of employment, and smooth the way for seasonal workers from neighbouring countries.
New taxes of between one and three percent of salaries will be slapped on most companies employing skilled foreigners. The bill will do away with the onerous condition that companies who want to employ foreigners have to prove that a suitable South African cannot be found to do the job in question.
“What we are now doing is making a foreigner more expensive, and if the employer needs him, he will take him. We are letting the free market decide who gets the job,” said Mario Ambrosini, special adviser to Home Affairs Minister Mangosutho Buthelezi. The salary taxes may be waived in sectors such as mining and agriculture where South Africa needs foreign labour, and those where foreign investment is needed.
The bill, now being fine-tuned, comes as both black and white skilled South Africans leave in droves.
In 1999, for the sixth year in a row, South Africa had a net outflow of some 4,000 people — 8,402 emigrants against 3,669 immigrants, according to Statistics South Africa.
But those are the official figures, and migration experts say the real number of those leaving is at least three times higher. Emigrants cite high crime rates and educational standards as prime reasons for leaving, and many whites fear for their career prospects and those of their children, under affirmative action programmes.
Doctors, nurses and teachers are among those emigrating, leaving gaps at home, and the government is currently recruiting retired teachers to fill in, and is bringing in 40 to 50 Cubans to train South African science and mathematics teachers.
Ambrosini said the bill would stipulate that once the salary tax percentage in any job category was spelled out it could not be changed for five years.
“The new law makes it easier to attract people who are needed in South Africa,” Ambrosini said. “For example, seasonal workers that are needed on farms for the harvests.”
He said the home affairs ministry wanted “to make things easy on legal workers so that we can shift the resources to dealing with the illegal ones.”
“At the moment we do not have the capacity to fight the illegal aliens,” he said.
The bill also makes it easier for foreign workers to obtain permanent residency in South Africa. It states that they can apply for residency after having worked in the country for five years provided they have an offer of a permanent job.
Unlike the current act, which requires that the applicant stays in that job for a number of years afterwards, the new bill does not tie a foreigner who gets residency to one job.
The bill introduces a special category for retired foreigners who are older than 60 and want to live in South Africa. They will be given permits to stay for up to four years at a time.
Ambrosini said this was done to make it easier for foreigners to retire in South Africa as they tended “to make a contribution without demanding much from the country.” – AFP