Double jeopardy: First we discourage investors, now block imported skills with visa regime
By Alec Hogg
The biggest problem for those invested in command and control economic dogma is the way technology is transforming the world. What took months gets done and dusted in days. With speed comes complexity. No human being, least of all those keeping public sector hours, has a hope of controlling such a rapidly developing ecosystem. The only chance of not becoming a blockage is having the humility to allow the combined wisdom of all participants to be your guide. In other words, listen to the market's needs.
In this environment, blunders by central controllers can be breathtaking. But even by those standards, SA's new Visa regime drops the bar to a fresh low. Talking to Immigration lawyer Peter Wieselthaler yesterday got me wondering if the lunatics have taken over the asylum. Here's the Zuma Administration's warped logic: Home Affairs wants fewer foreigners in the national job pool, so it has radically changed Visa regulations. Now a company wanting to import skills has to seek approval for each position from the Department of Labour before being able to apply for the Visa from Home Affairs.
The bureaucrats are pleased with themselves. Their red tape is guaranteed to choke off new arrivals, meaning less foreigners in the jobs pool. Just like their political masters ordered. But what these worthies haven't thought of is that to grow, Developing Economies need two things – capital and skills. Without both, economic growth won't happen. With its Labour Laws and BEE prescriptions, SA is already an uninviting environment for foreign capital. Now the legislators are blowing off the other foot by blocking top end skills. Wieselthaler says his clients are acting rationally. They are switching investments they would have made in SA to other, more accommodating geographies. Julius Malema's cup must be running over. With political opponents like these, who needs a strategy?
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