Tightening South Africa’s porous borders to prevent the influx of illegal immigrants is futile if economic problems in neighbouring countries are not dealt with, Minister of Home Affairs Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said on Tuesday.
”You have to deal with push factors in various communities that lead to the flooding of people into South Africa,” the minister told the Johannesburg branch of the Black Managers Forum.
Mapisa-Nqakula said South Africa is a ”pull country” in the region, adding that security issues such as border control have been overemphasised in the Department of Home Affairs. More attention should be placed on the positive role immigrants can play. ”Little attention is given on how immigration can play a role in economic growth.”
She said amendments to the Immigration Act of 2002 make it less difficult for skilled personnel to enter the country. Policies to attract foreign skills have been sensitive to the employment needs of South Africans.
”We must, however, appreciate the fact that a developing democracy such as ours might not have all the critical skills we require, and that there might be a need to attract foreign skills in a regulated manner.”
There are now a variety of permits that allow skilled foreigners greater flexibility in working in South Africa.
As part of the Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition, the extent of skills scarcity in the country is being investigated.
”Once these have been determined, I will be able … to publish a new list of scarce skills for quota work permits in terms of which foreigners can come into the country to seek employment.”
Mapisa-Nqakula said the growing perception that all foreigners are criminals is ”very xenophobic”. She said in a group of criminals there might be one or two foreigners. Based on this, people formulate the perception that illegal immigrants are responsible for all crime.
”We need to deal with these perceptions. Xenophobia is spreading like wildfire,” she said.
Mapisa-Nqakula said it is important to note that dark-skinned foreigners are the objects of xenophobia, and not, for example, Russians and Bulgarians.
She said millions are being spent on deporting thousands of illegal immigrants every week. ”It seems futile, when you deport them, they say: ‘Madam, I’ll be back here next week, thank you for the free trip to visit my family’. We need a good strategy to deal with the issue of borders.”
Home affairs
Mapisa-Nqakula said she is happy with transformation in the Department of Home Affairs, which has had serious capacity problems. She admitted her department has ”lots of bureaucracy”, inefficient officials and turnaround times that are ”not what one would expect”.
Problems with identity documents (IDs), such as people selling or stealing IDs for fraudulent use, are the result of ”internal pollution”. This is a problem that will continue as long as people are moving south towards South Africa, she said.
The introduction of the new ”smart card” identification system, as well as the national ID system that sanitises the previously manual system of fraudulent information, will curb these problems. ”I am hoping [this technology] will be the ultimate solution to our problems — I don’t know,” she said.
The minister said people have been fired, arrested and charged on a regular basis, but despite this corruption in her department does not stop. ”We keep preaching, the net is closing, but every day one or two people are being pounced upon.”
Mapisa-Nqakula said she feels this is a problem that arises from the ”I must get something” mindset, which people adopted in order to sabotage the previous system. ”It has become part of our culture… we must just keep preaching and having disciplinary procedures.”
She appealed to the private sector to help improve customer service in the department.
The introduction of flexi-hours, such as staying open until 6pm instead of 4pm and being open on Saturdays, is also aimed at improving customer service. — Sapa