Highly-regarded former director-general of home affairs Mavuso Msimang says it is “really worrying” that the government has taken so long to address the country's critical skills shortage while aware that “one of the major blockages to economic growth is the absence of skills”.
He has handed a report to the president recommending that the 22 requirements for skilled work permit visas be slashed to eight and simplified as a matter of urgency.
Given the devastating and well-documented impact of visa delays and denials on the economy, he finds it “very disappointing” that so many “cumbersome” requirements are still in place.
“The need to prioritise economic recovery was agreed by cabinet in 2020. At the time there was a recognition that among the main impediments to the growth of GDP was the lack of skills.
“They took the decision then that these processes had to be streamlined. That this investigation was commissioned only in 2022 is indicative of how slowly things happen when all the statistics show quite clearly the consequences of this.”
Readily available research shows that even a moderate increase in skilled migration could lift GDP by 1.2%, he says.
“What is really worrying is that the government is aware of this. And it has also been aware of the very poor performance of the department of home affairs in terms of processing skilled work permit visas expeditiously and in fact allowing people with critical skills to come in at all.”
It's almost as if people wanting to come here to do jobs we don't have the skills to do ourselves are despised
Rather than making it easier for companies to bring in essential skills not available in South Africa, government departments seem to make it as difficult as possible.
“It seems as if the first instinct when somebody applies for a visa to do a job here that they are clearly qualified to do is to stop them. It's almost as if people wanting to come here to do jobs we don't have the skills to do ourselves are despised.”
He says the instinctive response has been “to close the door to them because there might be a problem”.
The department of home affairs made “the supreme blunder” of centralising the issuing of visas and instructing all embassies not to issue them because it would be done at head office.
“They didn't equip head office with the ability to do that, and the volume of applications was impossible. It created a congestion that has not been eased up to this day.”
He estimates that the backlog of visa applications because of this decision “must be upwards of 50,000".
Home affairs has now reversed this decision, but Msimang says it will take at least 18 months to clear the backlog.
A major constraint is that many home affairs officials are “not suited for their jobs” and need to be retrained. Another is that the department depends on the state information technology agency (Sita) for its IT backup, which is “very poor”.
“Sita’s IT system is a huge impediment. Until it is fixed the problems at home affairs will not go away.”
He has recommended that they find a “more robust, more reliable” IT service provider.
He says this and other problems at home affairs should have been addressed by the government a lot sooner.
“If home affairs was recognised as one of the key areas for assisting the economy all these things would have been sorted out long ago. Somehow government did not appreciate the critical strategic role home affairs can play in the economy.”
Another huge constraint is its dependence on the department of employment & labour's database of critical skills, which is “very defective and out of date”.
He has recommended that it be updated more frequently than every five years as in the past. “It lags far behind the skills the country actually needs. It is inadequate to say the very least.”
A major cause of logjams in the processing of visas is the requirement that companies prove to the department of employment & labour’s satisfaction that the skills they want to import are not available in South Africa.
He says this in large part explains why between 2015 and 2021 “a puny” 16,097 critical skills visas were approved.
“This is pathetic when you consider that 33,728 critical skills visas were applied for. And even as we turn away these critical skills from abroad our skills base is diminishing as people leave South Africa because of the unsatisfactory performance of the economy.”
One of his most important recommendations is the introduction of the “trusted employer scheme”. This would remove the need for companies to prove to the department of employment & labour that the skills they want to import are not available locally, which he regards as nonsensical.
“Why would anybody import an expensive skill from outside if they could find such a skill in South Africa?
“A company like VW knows what kind of skills they need. They don't need the department of employment & labour to confirm that they require this skill.”
It's one reason skilled work visa applications take more than 48 weeks to process in South Africa, compared to a maximum of 12 weeks in Kenya and eight in Nigeria.
This is one of many areas where the department of employment & labour “needs to be brought on board” so that companies don't need to wait endlessly for them to give the go-ahead, he says.
“I would think that those tasked with this job would immediately see what the problem is and how to fix it. But you don't get that. Instead the reaction is: 'these people want to come here and monopolise our jobs and run our economy'.
“I came across a lot of that at middle management level at the department of employment & labour. It’s a very strong feeling there, although it’s been pointed out time and time again that the skills that are produced by our education system are not sufficient to meet the needs of our economy."
The government “seems to be” receptive to his recommendations, “but honestly in the end the president and his cabinet must be seized with this matter”.
The stakes couldn't be higher, he says.
“I don't know if everybody recognises the extent of the problem, but at the level of the president, ministers and senior officials I would certainly hope that they do.”
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