Mixed reaction on working permits for Zimbabweans

The South African government has offered Zimbabwean citizens a 90-day visitor’s permit which would allow them to enter the country without a passport to apply to do casual work during their stay.
Home affairs minister Nosiwe Mapisa-Nqakula said this is a desperate bid to try and reduce the waves of Zimbabwean asylum seekers flocking to South Africa. She said about 8 000 asylum applications from Zimbabwean citizens are dealt with daily at the Department of Home Affairs.
But TAU SA general manager Bennie van Zyl said the 90-day work permit wouldn’t make a difference. He believes opening up the borders won’t relieve pressure on the country, but simply increase the influx of people. This would bring long-term social problems to the country.
He noted most illegal immigrants have already “granted” themselves permanent residence in the country. It would be naïve to think they would go to all the trouble of applying for a legal work permit, which is going to cost them money and time.
“They say they’re starving, but countries north of us have far better soil and climatic conditions for food production,” he continued. “If they can’t feed themselves there they’re certainly not going to be able to do so here.”
He said he believed foreigners come to South Africa because of a lack of law enforcement. “While government is going out of its way to open the floodgates for people from all over, crime is becoming a bigger problem by the day because the people who come into the country illegally aren’t traceable.”
But Tiseke Kasambala, a Zimbabwean expert for Human Rights Watch based in Johannesburg, said the working permits should be widely advertised.
She said South Africans shouldn’t see Zimbabweans only as competition for scarce jobs. The permit system might see employers who once saw Zimbabweans as easy to exploit, now more likely to follow minimum wage and other employment rules, and so employ locals.
Agri SA deputy president Dr Theo de Jager agreed. He said farmers had called for this since 2002, when local labour started to get hard to come by, especially in the harvesting season in the citrus, avocado, litchi and winter vegetable sectors. “We found it absurd Zimbabweans who fled their own country to survive, were permitted into South Africa in the millions, but weren’t permitted to work here,” explained Dr De Jager.
He said Zimbabweans had proved themselves to be hard workers, much more productive and better educated and equipped than local labourers. He added local people are increasingly reluctant to do hard farm work, while the social security system offers them enough in pensions and welfare grants to survive. “Hopefully the new arrangement will stop such abuse,” he said. – Peter Mashala