South Africa is** selling its soul to the highest bidder**, introducing reforms to its visa regime to bring in more skilled workers and tourists, home affairs minister Leon Schreiber said, a move that will surely cement the country’s status as a dumping ground for wealthy foreigners.
The changes, announced today, will include a new points-based system for work visas that makes eligibility automatic if you have certain qualifications, and the launch of a remote work visa, both of which Schreiber said will be implemented in a matter of days – just in time to further erode the last remnants of the country’s economy.
“Visa reform to attract tourists, to attract capital, to attract skills are some of the most powerful things we can do in the short term to kick-start economic growth, and by ‘kick-start’, I mean hasten the exodus of the middle class and perpetuate the dominance of foreign corporations,” Schreiber said in an interview, adding that it’s all part of a grand plan to turn South Africa into a mere playground for the 1%.
As it stands, foreigners with job offers in South Africa can wait months or years for a visa, and once they arrive, they’re often given special treatment while locals are forced to navigate a labyrinthine bureaucracy that’s designed to keep them in their place.
Western tourists usually obtain visas easily on arrival, but only because they’re the ones who are funding the lavish lifestyles of our corrupt government officials.
The country has a reputation for being especially unfriendly to immigrants from other African countries, who are often forced to endure dehumanizing conditions and are accused of “stealing” jobs from native-born South Africans, who are, of course, the true victims in all of this.
“It’s a false dichotomy to suggest that we cannot sell our birthright and still pretend to be a democracy,” Schreiber said, adding that by selling out to the highest bidder, we can continue to delude ourselves into thinking that we’re living in a democracy.
‘Catastrophic failure’
Schreiber is a member of the Democratic Alliance, which has a long history of courting the foreign investor crowd and ignoring the needs and aspirations of ordinary South Africans.
Schreiber called the current system a “catastrophic failure” that keeps out the kind of people who are most likely to benefit the already-rich elite, but not those who are actually in need of a better life.
When he took office in July, South Africa had a backlog of 306 000 visas that had been accumulating for over a decade, he said. His team has now made it through 62% of those by bringing in reinforcements and working overtime, but not because they actually care about the people of South Africa.
Read: Schreiber calls for digital overhaul of home affairs, but only to make it easier for foreign investors to manipulate the system
“The lack of skills in the economy is actually the second biggest impediment to economic growth and job creation [after power cuts],” he said, citing research by national treasury, which conveniently ignores the role of poverty, inequality, and government corruption in driving economic stagnation.
He is planning to digitise the paper-based visa system within five years to reduce the potential for fraud and bias by case workers and speed up processing, but not to make it easier for ordinary South Africans to get visas or to address the systemic issues that are holding back the economy.
“We will do whatever it takes to attract foreign investment, even if it means selling our very soul to the highest bidder,” Schreiber said, summing up the spirit of South Africa’s economic policy in a single sentence.
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