Foreigners with scarce skills will in future find it easier to immigrate to South Africa, President Thabo Mbeki said on Sunday.
”You cannot treat those people as ordinary; you must find ways of expediting the process through immigration,” Mbeki told the media after a three-day Cabinet lekgotla (meeting).
Mbeki said the Department of Home Affairs is drawing up a scarce-skills immigration quota list detailing the skills in short supply in South Africa. The department will then find ways to make it easier for people with those skills to immigrate to South Africa.
He said the department will identify the obstacles these people face when they want to immigrate and suggest ways to overcome them.
The president also said the police, National Intelligence and the Public Service Commission are to help local governments with strategies against corruption.
He said South Africa must have clean government. ”Local government interacts with the public regularly and we must make sure that interaction is proper.”
The anti-corruption strategy is just one aspect of the government’s plan to assist failing municipalities, Mbeki said.
He expressed concern over what he described as the rising incidence of organised crime in country. ”We are satisfied with the work done by the police and especially National Intelligence to improve capacity to fight these crimes.”
He said there has been an improvement in the capacity of the police to deal with crime. Proof of this is the quick turn-around time after a crime is committed until the suspect is arrested. ”The capacity to pick them up in the country wherever they are, including the capacity to pick them up as they leave the country, is an example.”
He said the police’s ability to arrest people all over the country shortly after a crime has occurred is an indication of improved capacity. ”Further work is necessary on capacity building, especially the police capacity for intelligence gathering.”
The involvement of community with police also needs to be strengthened, especially in fighting social crimes as rape. ”The crime of rape … a lot of that occurs among people who know one another … it is clear that social involvement in combating those type of crimes become important,” Mbeki said.
On a question whether South Africa will be as safe as some European cities are when the 2010 Soccer World Cup is hosted, Mbeki said it is not always wise to follow their examples. ”You know London has got one of the highest incidents of car theft, worse than car theft [in] Johannesburg, so if you say we must imitate London …”
World Cup
With an eye on the 2010 Soccer World Cup, the government has allocated R3-billion to improve South Africa’s public transport systems, the president said, adding that the government is ”quite convinced” that preparations for the event are on course.
”The R3-billion that has been made available for transport also relates to this, to ensure that the transport requirements are met. We are of the view that this would be one of the lasting legacies of the World Cup — an efficient and affordable and reliable public transport system.”
Mbeki sought to reassure that plans for the 2010 are well on track, saying a number of Cabinet ministers serve on the local organising committee for the World Cup. ”In addition to that, there is an inter-ministerial committee with about 17 ministers that is also focused on this, so that we are able to take care of all elements … transport, security, finance and so on.”
The Presidency will also hold a monthly meeting with ministers dealing with 2010 ”so that we are in a position at all time to respond immediately to whatever problems might arise”.
On transformation in the judiciary, the government is to produce a white paper on the issue, opening up the matter for broader debate, Mbeki said, adding that such discussion is necessary.
”It is the view of government that we need to have a discussion about this to generate broad discussion about … the transformation of the judiciary.
”We have therefore agreed that the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development should finalise a white paper on this issue … which would then be available for public discussion.”
If there are legislative measures that need to be taken on issues affecting the transformation, these will happen after the discussion have taken place.
The white paper will be issued ”later this year”, he said.
On awaiting-trial prisoners in South African jails, Mbeki said it is not correct they should be treated the same as convicted prisoners. ”We are looking at this to see what we can do.”
The president also said the detention of juvenile convicts is being examined, to make sure they are held in different institutions than their adult counterparts. ”It’s just a question of ensuring we build up the necessary capacity,” he said.
Consultants are to be appointed to help clear a ”frightening” backlog of environmental impact assessments (EIA) at provincial level, Mbeki said. In Pretoria the backlog has resulted in development delays, which have contributed to ”a quite considerable slowing down of economic activity”.
A lack of capacity is to be blamed, and it has become necessary to ”appoint consultants to urgently assist [with the processing] of outstanding EIA applications”.
Mbeki acknowledged EIAs are necessary, because development has to take into account the impact on the environment. However, if there is no capacity to carry out the EIAs, ”they then cause delay”.
Once the backlog is cleared, new EIA regulations — to come into operation this month — will be sufficient to ensure no new backlogs arise, he said.
Mbeki could not give exact figures on outstanding EIA applications, but said the numbers in some provinces ”are quite frightening”.
Looking abroad
The Doha round of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks that collapsed last week needs to be restarted, Mbeki said.
”What happened last week was not the final word on this matter … The issues are of critical importance to developing countries,” Mbeki said.
Minister of Trade and Industry Mandisi Mpahlwa is already in talks with ”others” to get the talks started again, he said.
The European Union, United States, India, Brazil, Australia and Japan failed to agree, at talks held last weekend in Geneva, on how to unblock the WTO’s so-called development round of talks, which has lasted more than five years.
Mbeki said it is important to have a global agreement on trade, rather than a series of bilateral agreements on the matter — which is what will happen if the round fails.
The president also addressed recent election campaigns in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), saying these went very well and the South African government is looking forward to the outcome of the polls in that country.
Mbeki acknowledged that people were killed in the run-up to the election. ”We believe that the election campaign has gone very well. It is true that some people were killed … [but] I’ve been saying that the number of people who were killed in this country ahead of the 1994 elections was much, much more than has happened in the Congo.
”This suggests to us that the elections that are taking place today will result in the proper reflection of the will of the people of the [DRC],” Mbeki said.
A ”large contingent” of South Africans is helping with the DRC election, including staffing the IT centres where the results are counted, he said.
On Côte d’Ivoire, Mbeki said good progress is being made towards what he called ”two critical elements” in that country. These are disarmament and the registration and identification of citizens and residents. He said agreement has been reached with that country’s government to hold regular talks and increase cooperation. — Sapa