Business is chafing as the new Immigration Bill is held up by party politicking
Marianne Merten
The long-delayed Immigration Bill is set for a further round of public opinion sounding by Parliament’s home affairs committee, prompting complaints of “paralysis by consultation”.
It is understood that Minister of Home Affairs and Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi wrote to National Assembly Speaker Frene Ginwala last week to express his exasperation over the repeated delays.
The home affairs committee, chaired by African National Congress MP Aubrey Mokoena, will meet next Tuesday to decide on a process of consultation on the proposed law.
The Bill, designed to ease the recruitment of skilled foreigners by local business, has become tangled in ANC-IFP politicking.
In his state of the nation address more than a year ago, President Thabo Mbeki promised to expedite it as an investor-friendly measure. Organised British business, among others in South Africa, has complained about inordinate delays in the processing of permit applications.
Time is running out: by early June several sections of the current Aliens Control Act become null and void under deadlines set by Constitutional Court judgements last year and in 2000.
The court told the government to align with the Constitution those sections of the Act dealing with issuing work permits to foreigners married to South Africans and with extensions of temporary residence permits.
It is understood Ginwala in February indicated her office was prepared to reschedule the parliamentary programme to facilitate the speedy processing of the Bill.
But when the home affairs committee meets next week for only the second time this year members will be asked to decide who should be called for consultation from a list of at least 13 interest groups suggested by ANC committee members.
These include business, the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac), academia, South African Revenue Service and non-governmental organisations yet to be identified.
The committee must also decide whether to begin by processing amendments to the current law to comply with the Constitutional Court ruling, and deal with the Immigration Bill later.
Mokoena said he would not commit himself to a deadline for processing the Bill, but next Tuesday’s meeting was important to determine the correct process and to “get everyone on board”.
Opposition parties in the committee believe further hearings are unnecessary.
In order to speed up the processing of the Bill it is likely they will raise a proposal that it be read by the committee in the presence of the state law adviser and a senior home affairs official.
The Bill would essentially allow employers to decide on their skilled labour needs and would replace the current permit procedure, which allows bureaucratic discretion, with a set of objective requirements. Its most controversial feature is a “licence fee” employers would have to pay into a government training fund a concession to the labour movement.
The Bill has been a long-standing flashpoint between the ANC and the IFP, fuelled by a breakdown in relations between Buthelezi and his ANC-linked director-general, Billy Masetlha.
Extensive consultations took place after the White Paper was drafted and before the initial Bill was published for comment in February 2000.
Dozens of amendments were made following the first tabling in the Cabinet in mid-2000. After further discussions and workshops, the Cabinet approved a framework for the Bill allowing for an immigration service and for easier access to skilled personnel from abroad.
The Immigration Bill was formally tabled before the home affairs committee in June last year.