New home affairs minister Leon Schreiber was one of the first to come under fire from ANC cabinet colleagues for hogging the limelight. But his record so far suggests he wasn’t just doing spin.
There is anecdotal evidence to indicate that the department has moved rapidly under his watch to clear the backlog of skilled visas and make it easier for foreigners to come and work in SA. Now he has taken this forward by gazetting regulations that give full effect to the reforms that have in theory been government policy for some time but in practice have so far failed to open SA’s borders to the skills and expertise it needs to import.
The new regulations flesh out the new points-based and remote work visa systems for skilled foreigners and, along with the new trusted employer scheme, they should finally get the ball rolling. That could start to contribute to SA’s economic turnaround quite quickly.
Schreiber has cited research showing that importing just 11,000 skilled and experienced individuals with higher education could add 1.2% to SA’s annual economic growth rate and 1.32% to its tax take annually.
Nor do such immigrants add to unemployment — indeed, the evidence is that immigrants with scarce skills help to generate employment, with each one creating up to seven new jobs. The income thresholds in the new regulations are high enough to allay any fears that they threaten low-income, unskilled jobs.
Operation Vulindlela deserves credit for pushing the reforms along over the past few years. Under a new and committed minister they are at last set to happen.
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