Transcript copy: Interaction with media by Home Affairs Minister Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma regarding amendments to the Immigration Bill and new permitting regime

8 Feb 2011

Comments by Minister of Home Affairs N Dlamini Zuma

Good afternoon to the ladies and gentlemen of the media as well as officials from the Department.

Firstly, we are introducing these amendments into our Immigration Law for mainly two reasons: to streamline the processing of and facilitation of people coming into South Africa and we also would like to have some control over our immigration, that is, people who come into South Africa. We would like to have a very easy process for people who come into South Africa as tourists, critical skills, students, investors, people who are coming to add value to our economic, social and cultural development.

This is one issue we would like to address, both in the legislation and the regulations because we want to make permitting easy for these categories of people. We are going to be finalising regulations that will make it very easy for these categories of people to come into South Africa. We have already begun introducing some elements because these did not require legislation. For instance, students do not have to come to apply for new permits every year since we have begun to issue permits for the duration of their study so they do not have to worry about the Department of Home Affairs. We are also going to be introducing a system of critical skills in business where we are going to be making sure that the company that needs skills does the checking and take responsibility for the people they bring to South Africa.

We are therefore going to make all these changes to facilitate and in places for instance, where visas are still required we are doing to see if we can have a special dispensation for people who are coming to invest and regular visitors to South Africa. We will be looking at giving them multiple entry visas even where we do not have a visa waiver agreement.

So, basically we would really like to streamline and know who is coming in South Africa. Who is getting permits?

The other area we are going to look at is where people come to South Africa as visitors and tourists, and when here they want to change their status - some are married within a short space of time and want to have spousal permits.  You will remember that at some time we had a discussion at Lindela where someone was saying he had a right to stay because he had found the love of his life. He was asking why he was being held at Lindela when he wanted to get married.

I think, there is no country in the world that says that anyone who comes to visit is entitled to remain in the country forever. This does not happen anywhere and it shouldn't happen in South Africa either.

We like tourists and invite them to come to our country in their millions but even if you were a genuine tourist and even if you did find the love of your life, you would want to return to your country to wrap up your life before settling in South Africa. It is clear that this person did not have any intention of returning to their country in the first place. I don't think we should allow this.

There are people who fly to other countries and then cross illegally into South Africa and when they are there, they want to be given all sorts of permits and take us to court for all manner of transgressions. I think, this we cannot have.  People should stick to the law. We are not going to allow illegal activities and we are not going to be dishing out permits to illegal people.

This is why we are saying in this amendment that if you come to South Africa and you want to stay forever, it must be an exceptional circumstance. This cannot be the norm. We should know why you want to change your status and what value you would be adding to our country. Because you must remember that immigration must be to the benefit of the country. Whilst we have this movement of people between ourselves and the world, we must also look at our national security and national interest generally.

When it comes to immigration practitioners - I presume they are consultants. And no one is saying they should not consult. What we are saying is that we do not want them in our offices. The people with whom they have consulted must then come to our offices. They can consult wherever they want to consult. We are not going to go around closing their offices. What we are saying is that we want to see the people who are applying for permits. We will not be dishing out permits to faceless people we have never seen or giving forms to people we have never seen. Consultations can be held with clients wherever - we have no problem with this but when a person wants a permit, he/she must come into our offices, at least until Home Affairs becomes a paperless department and then applications can be made online.

The other day, one of the Deputy Ministers was telling me about a person who owns a restaurant somewhere and when this person was asked how he came to South Africa.  He said he asked for asylum and when he was asked for the reason given since there are no problems in his country, he replied he did not know because the immigration agent dealt with the matter with the Department of Home Affairs. And because of this, he is now in South Africa running a restaurant.

We do not want this. People must know why they are here and what reasons they provided for us to give them permits. So, we are not going to change this. We are saying we are not going to close their offices - we do not have anything to do with their businesses. But we want to see the people we are granting permits to, not their immigration agents.

I was visiting one of our offices the other day. I found a guy with stacks of forms. I asked him his name and he replied. I asked him why he was carrying so many forms, was he applying for a permit. He replied that he was a messenger in a law firm. When I asked what this had to do with the Department he said that his employers are lawyers but since they were busy at court he was delivering the forms. Now, we cannot have a system like that, surely?

I'm sorry but we are not going to change this. We are not closing their businesses or taking away their employment. They can still be employed, they can still work. But we will not accept applications for permits on behalf of others.

This is the main thing we want to eliminate - faceless people getting permits.

Secondly, and this is just a matter of practice - we are centralising the permitting function for various reasons. On one hand we were getting all sorts of calls about permits although we could not locate these permits. Someone was asking about their permanent residence - permanent residence is a very serious matter but it was being centralised at various small offices, dealt with by junior officials. So we have now centralised it but as I say, we are streamlining this and we are making it very easy for all those who may be coming to South Africa to do whatever business they are coming to do.

But we will be putting in place checks and balances against criminals and those who want to abuse our system. We can give you lots of examples of people who come to South Africa, get married within a few weeks and change from a visitors to spousal permits.

We have also been seeing a new trend which I mentioned to you when we were discussing the amendment of citizenship act - we began seeing a situation where babies were being registered with the names of the mother and the father and within a few months, the mother would return to claim she had made a mistake on the birth certificate. So, people were beginning to rent babies because there is a permit that allows you to remain in South Africa because you are the father of a South African baby. We are sorry, but this is not going to continue.

This is why we are going to be very strict with people who want to change their status. We are not saying that people will not change their status in future, we are making provision for exceptional circumstances. Of course, if you have been here and you are applying for permanent residence, you do not have to return to your country of origin to apply for permanent residence. That is not a change of status because you have been here and you have been making a contribution to the country.

What we are aiming at is people who come here and really abuse our system thoroughly. We are not going to go the route of the Green Paper because these amendments are urgent and they have created enormous problems for us. And you find people who arrive in the neighbouring state and cross over into South Africa illegally. Once they do so, having crossed the Indian Ocean they claim this or that permit when they applied for visas to enter another country and they end up in South Africa claiming a number of things. And that is the sort of thing we want to eliminate.

And of course, I know the other area about which people have been talking is the different types of permits - for instance, we have put all the critical skills permits into one. The corporate permit for instance, will remain, we are not going to be allowing different conditions.

We were criticised here last year for issuing permits to exotic dancers as critical skills but this was because these corporate permits are issued without linking who is in South Africa to do what. The company is just given 20 permits and then they decide to bring in exotic dancers. And then we have to answer. We are not doing away with this, we are just streamlining the process so there is only one way to receive a permit for critical skills.

There was also a misunderstanding about the Departments we would have to consult and that we would work with. We are not doing away with this, we are just putting this into the regulations because it becomes quite cumbersome every time there is a change of name. Now we have to work with Economic Development, now it means that if there was nothing we had to change, we would have to go to the legislature to request an amendment. So, we are putting all of this into the regulations. The Department of Foreign Affairs has now become the Department of International Relations and Cooperation. We would have had to request an amendment in this regard. We are not removing it at all, we are just putting it into the regulations so we needn't go to Parliament when changes need to be made - we would just have to amend the regulations.

There was also an issue about ensuring industry has a percentage of South African employees.I think this is a very interesting suggestion and we are considering it. We have just discussed with the Minister of Trade and Industry because investors must be obliged to create jobs for South Africans. So, there must be a requirement that employment must be created up to a certain level. Of course, there may be industries that require skills from outside but not the entire company, perhaps just at the upper end. So, we are considering this even if it was not in our original amendments. But this has come through in the public hearings and we think it makes sense and we are looking at it.

There was also a question around section 23 permits. This is a permit that is issued to people who are seeking asylum in South Africa. They are supposed to report at the port of entry and say that they are applying for asylum and they are given a permit to transit from the border to the centre at which they will apply for asylum so if they are met before this point they are not bundled up for deportation as illegal immigrants. But we also do not see why it should take two weeks for the person to report to the centre if they are looking for asylum. We have decreased the time to five days within which they must report to the asylum centre. And, as far as I am concerned, this is still a long time. For those of us who have crossed borders, we know that we have had to report to an asylum centre almost immediately. We have cut the number of days from 14 to five There are centres you can reach within hours of the border so we do not see why it should take 14 days for an asylum seeker to report to an asylum centre.

I think I have answered most of the issues although I am certain your main interest is in immigration practitioners but I thought I should expand on this matter.

Thank you.

Questions and answers

Question: Minister, are you open to amending your proposed changes to the Immigration Bill following substantial criticism from the public hearings especially in terms of immigration practitioners where it was suggested it is wrong to ban a particular category of employment?

Answer: When it comes to immigration practitioners - I presume they are consultants. And no one is saying they should not consult. What we are saying is that we do not want them in our offices. The people with whom they have consulted must then come to our offices. They can consult wherever they want to consult.We are not going to go around closing their offices. What we are saying is that we want to see the people who are applying for permits. We will not be dishing out permits to faceless people we have never seen or giving forms to people we have never seen. Consultations can be held with clients wherever - we have no problem with this but when a person wants a permit, he/she must come into our offices, at least until Home Affairs becomes a paperless department and then applications can be made online.

Question: Minister, there have been calls for this process to be halted and for a new Green Paper to be produced and for the process to begin anew. : Would you consider this proposal?

Answer: We are not going to go the route of the Green Paper because these amendments are urgent and they have created enormous problems for us.

Question: Minister, many questions arise - you say you are going to streamline the process but you are implementing checks and balances - how will this work? You talk about companies taking responsibility for those they employ - what sort of responsibility will this be? In regulations, with scarce skills, will you try to manage where people come from, for instance teachers from India rather than USA. Philosophically, does South Africa want new citizens - do you like the idea of people coming to the country, and applying to remain as residents or would you prefer they do what they need to do and return to their countries of origin?

Answer: We do like new citizens, this is why we have dual citizenship. If we did not like the idea of people becoming South African, we would not allow dual citizenship. There are many countries in the world that do not allow dual citizenship. South Africa does. So, we are quite happy if someone comes to South Africa, builds a power station and then decides he/she wants to settle here with their family. That if fine. The law allows for this.

In fact, one of the issues we have been discussing is that we must stop issuing one year permits. If people are coming to South Africa with critical skills we should be issuing longer permits so they can begin to plan their lives instead of chasing us. We will also reduce our work load by not issuing permits every year.

I think when you manage immigration most people are actually low risk in these categories. This is why we say that companies must take responsibility - not for what the person does in South Africa but for the checks we would have had to do. For instance, at the moment, if a CEO of a company comes to South Africa they have to provide a police clearance going back at least twenty years. Now imagine if that CEO has been to about five countries before South Africa, he will have to write to all those countries requesting police clearance. Which company would bring a criminal CEO? But of course these things must be checked by the company so that when they apply we take their word they are bringing a bona fide, honest person with integrity.

You obviously however cannot blame the company for something the person may do in future that is wrong. The law will have to take its course. But we are trying to make it easy by saying to companies, they should do the checks if they want to bring five people, for instance. We will do the minimum required and trust that they have done their own checks and bringing a person who is not a criminal because this is what we have to check.

I thought I had explained regarding the checks and balances issue - we would make it easy for 13 categories and we would have checks and balances for criminals or those who want to manipulate our systems for their own ends and not the benefit of the country. But for the people we have mentioned, tourists, business, critical skills, students, we will facilitate this. But we will have checks and balances for criminals who are coming to abuse our country.

This is how immigration has to be managed - you cannot have one system for everything because if you do, you may risk keeping our people you should be letting in and if your system is like a sieve, all sorts of unsavoury people will come in, like drug and human trafficking.

If you are in the category where we have to facilitate your entry to the country, we will do so. If you are in the category where we have to check, we will do so. And if we have to stop you, we will have to do so, especially if you are on our list, or Interpol or things like this.

As for preferred countries - that is up the Ministers we work with because we will merely facilitate the entry into South Africa of identified persons. If the Minister of Education says he is recruiting teachers from a particular country then we will have to accept this and work with him. We cannot decide we prefer Mongolians to British. If he/she says there is no preference of the origin of the skills, we will accept this. Ours is to facilitate but we will have to be guided by the relevant Ministers.

Question: Minister, the amendments provide for the pre-screening of asylum seekers at ports of entry. Some people at the public hearings suggested this would increase the number of secret crossings into South Africa.

Answer: Basically, if you arrive at a port of entry from Russia and you arrive at Lavumisa, obviously the question will arise - how did you get here or something like that? If someone says I have arrived from Swaziland and I am requesting asylum, then we will have been the first safe country. You must remember, international law refers to the first safe country an asylum seeker enters. The question will arise if someone says they are from Russia - is South Africa the first safe country.

Even from Egypt, we will have to ask if South Africa is the first safe country - we may get told that Sudan was not safe and then ok. But, we must ask.If you coming from China at our port of entry, we must ask if we are the first safe country because international law regulates this matter. This is all this is. If someone says I first flew to Swaziland then we must ask why Swaziland was not safe for you. Because you must realise, a lot of these people applied for passports and visas from their governments, boarded planes and therefore you must ask. But if it is clear that South Africa is the first safe country then you cannot ask. This is all this means, especially because we do not want to be taken for granted as a country.

Issued by: Department of Home Affairs, February 8 2011

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