Home Affairs urged to exhaust local skills before granting foreigners visas

Joel Sihle Ngubane of the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party and a member of the portfolio committee on Home Affairs have called on the department to prioritise local skills before issuing critical skills visas to foreigners.

The committee met on Tuesday and was briefed by Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber on the implementation of the Vulindlela recommendations related to the department.

The recommendations aim to review the regulatory framework and processes that govern the issuing of critical skills, general work, business and intracompany transfer visas at the department.

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This includes the point-based system that is used to determine visa eligibility.

The point-based system considers at least six criteria, including age, qualifications, language skills, work experience, offer of employment and the income being offered to the applicant.

Visa system implementation

While Ngubane praised the department’s presentation on the recommendations, he expressed concerns about implementation.

“Here we are as Home Affairs trying to look good on paper, but bad in practice. This is a good presentation. This is where the country needs to be, but we’re not there at all when it comes to practice,” said Ngubane.

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“We’re used to these things in South Africa where we come here with excellent presentations and paperwork and policies, but when we go to implementation, it’s zero.”

Point-based system for visas

Ngubane further urged the department to exhaust all local options before seeking skills abroad.

The department has approved 4,913 critical skills visas since 2020.

“Before we embark on the points-based system, does it kick in after we have locked at local skills first? Before we move in, we need to look at the local skills, so that when we go out there, we know we failed to find local skills,” he said.

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“I was shocked when they said they refreshed the skills list in 2014, but the higher education publishes their list every year. All these years, where were they sleeping and not looking at lists?

“Let’s involve the Higher Education department too in this, not only the Labour department. The Higher Education is sitting with an influx of skills that are not hired by Home Affairs. There are a lot of kids that are unemployed and have qualifications, but we speak of looking elsewhere for skills.”

‘Is construction critical skill?’

“If you go to Midrand where the Chinese are constructing houses, there are Chinese who are just doing construction work and you ask yourself: is that a critical skill? There is a problem there.”

The member of Parliament also called for a review of some labour laws that allow people to get away with too much in the workplace. He emphasised that he wasn’t advocating for the mistreatment of workers, but rather for tightening laws to ensure South Africans are seen as reliable employees.

“Sometimes as Home Affairs we look at the wrong things and fail to fix the right things. We need to look at our labour laws too. They [foreigners] bring their own labourers because our labour laws are weak, and theirs are tight,” he said.

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“Zimbabweans are occupying all our restaurants and business owners have seen the loopholes, that these guys can’t strike, they have not joined any labour unions. These things must be fixed. I’m not saying we must change our labour laws to treat our people inhumanely. I’m saying, how do we prevent people looking at Zimbabwean foreigners to employ than South Africans.”

‘People come in like they’re going to the bathroom’

Ngubane also highlighted the need to secure the country’s borders.

“We need to look at capacitating the BMA (Border Management Authority). We talk nicely at the visa regime but we have porous borders,” he said.

“People come in like they’re going to the bathroom and go back as if they’re going to the bedroom. Borders are porous, we need to go back and look at the basics before we look at what is being presented here.”