Cape Town – The Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry had temporarily stopped helping potential foreign investors to obtain work and residence permits because of objections from some of its members and obstruction from department of home affairs staff, Bonke Dumisa, the chief executive of the chamber, said yesterday.

Some members had pointed out that their business was to help intending investors to set up operations in this country and the chamber was competing with them. And some home affairs staff had been receiving “kick-backs” to issue permits, Dumisa said.

His remarks followed claims at a business forum held in Cape Town this week that South Africa was losing millions of rands worth of foreign investment because of the way would-be investors were treated.

Business people at the forum, which was organised by the department of trade and industry, complained about incompetence and obstructive behaviour by staff of the department of home affairs.

Leon Isaacson, of Aldes 21 Business Brokers, said individuals who wanted to invest sums ranging from R1 million to R10 million, and companies that intended to invest much more, were being misinformed by home affairs staff. They were given differing and misleading information about how to obtain permits, causing them to return to the department’s offices again and again until in some cases “they give up the idea of coming to South Africa”. One applicant was mistakenly advised to return to his home country and submit the application from there.

Isaacson said the situation had become so bad that his head office was advising brokers not to bother with would-be foreign buyers as permit difficulties led to many deals falling through. He queried why staff in offices in different cities could put their own interpretation on the Immigration Act.

Elsa Loggenberg, an immigration practitioner, said she was frequently required to queue for hours at a time and to return five or six times to submit an application.

Chris Watters, an immigration lawyer, said the Immigration Act was being rewritten and it was hoped that it would be replaced in July next year. But the department was not consulting with stakeholders and he feared this would “result in another shambolic act”.

The provision in the act for quotas of people with skills in short supply should be regarded as work in progress because there were some significant skills and qualifications that were not mentioned.

Watters said it was his view that the department was underfunded and was staffed by people with low morale who were undertrained and poorly paid but had power, which led to corruption.

An announcement that people found guilty of corruption would be dismissed had raised hopes that this situation would change, but it had been revealed that it had been “the minor bit players” who had lost their jobs for corruption.

Wilna Barnard, deputy director for investment promotion facilitation at the department of trade and industry, said it had senior staff who would give advice and help to intending investors. She said the department of home affairs usually issued permits on her department’s recommendation

On the 11th of November 2003, the High Court in Cape Town, issued an order that all asylum seekers / refugees will be eligible to apply for temporary residence without canceling their status and be eligible to apply for permanent residence without having to go the route of the Refugee Standing Committee who would certify whether they would be indefinite refugee status and accordingly qualify to apply for permanent residence.

This order was implemented by Home Affairs countrywide and the process continued with no problem. It would appear that Home Affairs had an internal legal opinion and they believed the jurisdiction of the court did not extend to the rest of the country and in and around September 2005, Home Affairs head office issued a directive that until further notice, all refugee / asylum seeker applications for temporary residence could not be finalized and no new application could be accepted.

The whole basis of this judgment was that South Africans who were either married to or were in a life partner relationship or had children from a refugee / asylum seeker had the right to enjoy the similar right as a South African given that they needed to support their families.

The problem with the refugee system is that although they could work, they did not have work permits as such and employers did not understand this type of permit resulting in them not being able to work to support their SA family.

In discussion with Home Affairs, Deon Erasmus, Litigation Dept. in PTA they confirm they are in contempt of court and have adopted a wait and see attitude.

Home Affairs is in the process of being taken to court and I believe this is a total disregard of peoples human rights and blatant disregard for the law and I believe that the Human Rights Commission is also involved.

Rod Maxwell
CEO SA Migration Intl

“Professional skills were critically needed as the country moved into higher economic gear, deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said on March 27th.

Speaking during the launch of the Joint Initiative on Priority Skills Acquisition (Jipsa), Mlambo-Ngcuka said nothing short of a skills revolution would extricate the country from the skills shortage crisis it faced.

The accelerated and shared growth initiative for South Africa (Asgisa) has identified six factors that constrain growth. One of these is the shortage of skilled labour. Jipsa is a high-level task team and its job is to identify urgent skills needs and advise on ways to respond to these challenges.

“The immediate focus of Jipsa will be on skills identified by Asgisa. These include skills needed for infrastructure development in government, the private sector and state-owned enterprises, the expanded public works programme and public service and social service delivery,” she said.

“Skills are not just one of the constraints facing Asgisa but a potentially fatal constraint. That fact should be admitted with emphasis.”

She said Jipsa was only focusing on scarce and critical skills without which the country could not deliver on Asgisa commitments and targets.

A shortage of skills is hampering attempts to grow the economy faster, and the government has said it would speed up work permits for foreigners.

Mlambo-Ngcuka said Jipsa must put in place a system to bring in volunteers, retirees and other people with the skills required and identified.

Based on Asgisa, priorities working areas identified for Jipsa are high-level, world-class engineering and planning skills for network industries, transport, communications and energy, all of which are at the core of the country’s infrastructure programme.

Bobby Godsell, the chairman of Business Unity SA, said there was a need for a skills strategy that was both occupation-relevant and rich in transferable skills. “In this regard we must be careful that the concept of learnership is not robbed of all occupational content,” Godsell said.

“This concern is occasioned by the phenomenon of unemployed graduates. Employers are clearly not sourcing new trainees from among the corps of graduates available for the labour market,” he said.”

Four brand new hotels will be built at the V&A Waterfront in response to the growth in tourism to Cape Town and the hosting of the 2010 soccer World Cup in South Africa.

Two of the hotels will be three-star hotels, aimed at the domestic market.

Western Cape premier Ebrahim Rasool announced the R1,5 billion development at a press conference in the city on Thursday.

Waterfront CEO Derrick van der Merwe said: “This facility is critical to our tourism and investment in the Western Cape, so we should be interested in its plans. Cabinet is excited that in this financial year alone, the Waterfront is seeing development to the value of R1,5-billion.

“We are also pleased that at least four new hotels are being planned in response to our growth in tourism and in anticipation of World Cup 2010, two of which will be more affordable hotels for domestic tourists.”

Rasool said: “We resolved to work much more closely with the Waterfront management to ensure synergy in our shared goals so that the implementation of the Accelerated Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (Asgisa) supports and benefits from the developments at the Waterfront.”

Finance and Tourism MEC Lynne Brown said 1,5 million tourists visited Cape Town last year, up from 750 000 five years ago.

“At present, tourism contributes about nine percent to the provincial economy,” she said.

“Given the growth, we have to ensure sustainability and improve that growth to about 15%. It is possible.

“At present, the largest number of tourists come from Britain, Germany and America. We have to look at the domestic market.”