Botswana's Ian Khama can't get asylum in SA as refugee offices are closed - govt 

News 24 – 29 November 2021

• The home affairs department denied reports in Botswana that its former leader was seeking political asylum in South Africa.

• A home affairs spokesperson said even if Ian Khama wanted to apply for asylum, it wasn't currently possible as refugee processing offices were closed due to Covid-19.

• The Seretse Khama Ian Khama Foundation issued a statement on 10 November stating that Khama was in South Africa.

The Department of Home Affairs has denied reports doing the rounds in neighbouring Botswana that its former leader Ian Khama has left the country and is seeking political asylum in South Africa.

Responding to media queries from News24, Department of Home Affairs spokesperson Siyabulela Qoza said the "refugee reception offices are currently closed, and this means that no new asylum applications are being processed".

He went on to say that "the Department of Home Affairs has no record of Mr Ian Khama having applied for asylum in SA", as was being reported in Botswana.

Sources at the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) told News24 the department was watching the matter closely.

A Dirco official said:

This situation threatens to be a repeat of the former Mozambique finance minister (Manuel Chang). That scenario caused friction between the two countries, and this too threatens the same.

Chang has been jailed in South Africa since 2018 and is set to be extradited to the US.

Seeking protection

When approached for comment, the head of public diplomacy at Dirco Clayson Monyela said questions by News24 would be best directed to the home affairs department.

The Seretse Khama Ian Khama Foundation issued a statement on Wednesday, 10 November denying reports that Botswana's former statesman had fled the country to South Africa. 

The foundation issued the statement after media reports that Khama had ditched state security and crossed the border with South Africa, where it was alleged he was seeking protection from Pretoria, claiming Gaborone wanted to arrest him.

"The SKI Khama Foundation office is receiving a flurry of enquiries regarding the absence from the country of former president Lt. Gen. Dr. Seretse Khama Ian Khama, who is in South Africa on a private visit.

"We are also observing commentary that seems to be deliberately untrue and causing undue public alarm. The notion that he has fled the country or has gone into exile is simply not true. It is also not true, as alleged by some, that he at any point confirmed fleeing Botswana, never to return. The former president is on a pre-arranged private visit to RSA, visiting friends and family, and having a series of meetings connected to his private visit. When Gen. Khama has completed his engagements in South Africa or anywhere else where these may take place he will return home," read the foundation's statement. 

Khama was understood to have made his way to South Africa after Botswana's Intelligence Director-General Peter Magosi demanded that he hand over all his firearms.

Magosi even lodged an urgent application in the Botswana High Court for permission to raid Khama's residences, which was triggered by an allegation that Khama had threatened Botswana's security.

The former president had also previously been accused of conspiring to dethrone incumbent President Mokgweetsi Masisi.

In the court papers, the Intelligence Agency says Khama may be in violation of the Penal Code, which includes the concealment of treason, obtaining unlicensed firearms and possession of arms of war.

This went back to a case in which three members of Khama's private security detail were accused of possessing illegal firearms. The matter was later dismissed due to a lack of evidence.

Search and seizure warrant 

Khama and his successor, Masisi, had a fallout in the run-up to the 2019 elections.

The High Court dismissed the application for a search and seizure warrant to raid Khama's home.

There were also reports that the Intelligence Directorate had approached the Lobatse High Court for a warrant of arrest for Khama, with the court dismissing the application on Monday. 

University of Botswana lecturer in politics and administrative studies Adam Mfundisi has said the rivalry between Khama and Masisi can be traced back to Masisi's ascendance to the highest political office on 1 April 2018.

He said:

Upon assuming office, Masisi adopted an aggressive policy of damning everything his boss did or did not do. According to his interpretation of the political environment, anything that the Khama administration pursued was detrimental to the socio-economic and political development of Botswana. Even if he was SKI's (Seretse Khama Ian Khama's) most trusted lieutenant, he wanted to trash SKI's legacy, which was riddled with serious problems.

Mfundisi said public confidence and trust in the Khama administration at the end of his tenure was extremely low. Generally, people accused the Khama-Masisi regime of being undemocratic, authoritarian, unethical and unaccountable, among other things. Mfundisi said Masisi wanted to disassociate himself from the unpleasant perceptions of the former administration.

"To him, Masisi went all out to demonise former president Khama to woo the voters to his newly branded CAVA BDP (Botswana Democratic Party) brigade. The 2019 general election was used as a platform to launch vicious and vitriolic propaganda against Khama and his associates. Anyone who associated with Khama was a demon and needed to be shunned by the voters. An assault on Khama's presidential benefits was questioned and assertions of Khama's autocratic leadership tossed," said Mfundisi.

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What can I do if my application for refugee status has been rejected and I have been given a ‘must leave’ letter?

If your asylum application is rejected, this means that the DHA does not recognise you as a refugee. You will receive a letter stating that you must leave the country or file an appeal usually within 30 days of being told of the rejection. Depending on the reasons for the rejection of your application, you will need to appeal to the Refugee Appeal Board or the Standing Committee for Refugee Affairs. If you think that you do qualify for refugee status it would be a good idea to seek legal advice from an organisation such as ours

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Cabinet announces Zimbabwe Exemption Permits will not be extended 

25 November 2021 | - Groundup 

Holders of the ZEPs given a year to migrate to other permits 

The Zimbabwean Exemption Permit is coming to an end.

• The Zimbabwean Exemption Permit which expires on 31 December will not be renewed Cabinet announced on Thursday.

• About 182,000 Zimbabweans who hold the permit have been given a year’s grace to migrate to other permits to allow them to stay in South Africa.

• The Cabinet decision is disappointing for many who now face an uncertain future.

On Thursday, Cabinet announced that the Zimbabwean Exemption Permit (ZEP), which ends 31 December, will not be extended. 

However, Cabinet decided on a 12-month grace period during which time ZEP holders “should apply for other permits appropriate to their particular status or situation”. Those who are not successful will have to leave South Africa or face deportation, said Cabinet.

This ends months of rising anxiety for about 180,000 Zimbabweans in South Africa as the ZEP expiry date loomed and there had been no indication of what government intended to do.

Permit holders were debating whether to return home for Christmas. Many said banks had been refusing to grant them loans and cancelling their pre-approved bond applications, while employers were not renewing contracts because of their uncertain status. Cabinet’s grace period will not necessarly help in this regard, and many ZEP holders are unlikely to qualify for other permits.

Leaving the announcement to the eleventh-hour had also allowed for misinformation that the South African government had extended the permits by five years to circulate on social media, rumours which the Cabinet statement referred to as fake news.

Back in October 2019, Minister of Home Affairs Aaron Motsoaledi told GroundUp that the three special permits which were issued to legalise the status of nationals from Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Angola already living in South Africa, would be renewed. At the time the minister said they can’t stop renewing special permits if the problems that led to those special permits are not yet resolved. But he also said that permits can’t automatically be renewed by the department; it needed Cabinet.

Cabinet has now spoken.

“I’m very disappointed with the decision by the Cabinet,” said Advocate Simba Chitando, who filed papers in the Gauteng High Court in October requesting the South African government to grant ZEP holders permanent residency.

“I knew that the cancellation of the permit was being called for by many political parties, many of whom did well in the elections. The unfortunate decision has left litigation as the only viable solution for ZEP holders, permanently resident in the country, and who have given over a decade of their lives to this country,” Chitando told GroundUp shortly after the Cabinet announcement.

The ZEP community was divided on Chitando’s legal challenge, who feared it would ruin the chance of getting the permit extended. That has now been put to bed.

Chitando said the ZEP exploited Zimbabwean labour and made them second class citizens in a constitutional democracy, “renewable after every four years, operating like a dompas from the apartheid era, in a manner that Zimbabwean migrants to Europe, the US, and Australia, have not experienced”.

“It is a slave permit, and an abomination to the Pan African principle of ubuntu,” he said.

He is proceeding with his litigation.

Union of Zimbabwean Educators Western (UZEWC) said as much as they are happy for the 12 month reprieve they still maintain that granting permanent residency to deserving Zimbabweans should have been considered.

“Zimbabweans have been on special work permits for more than ten years, hence their stay in South Africa has been legal. They have been paying taxes. Some have started families here, and have children,” said Jack Mutsvairo, chairperson of the union.

“We also expect the DHA to expeditiously inform employers, creditors and the banking sector … so that none of our members are prejudiced.”

“We also hope that the application for other suitable permits by Zimbabweans will not be subjected to avoidable bureaucratic shenanigans. Let this be a user-friendly application process with predetermined timeframes.”

There are also other special exemption permits that will need decisions:

On 16 August 2021, Home Affairs opened the application for an Angolan Exemption Permit. The Angolan Special Permit (ASP) was first issued in 2018 and expires at the end of this year.

The Lesotho Exemption Permit (LEP) of 2019 expires on 31 December 2023.

www.samigration.com

Supply chain attacks are the hacker's new favourite weapon. And the threat is getting bigger

20 November 2021- ZD Met

Major incidents have demonstrated how powerful supply chain attacks can be - is your network resilient enough to cope?

Compromising a business supply chain is a key goal for cyber attackers, because by gaining access to a company that provides software or services to many other companies, it's possible to find a potential way into thousands of targets at once.

Several major incidents during the past 12 months have demonstrated the large-scale consequences supply chain attacks can have. In one of the biggest cybersecurity incidents in recent years, cyber attackers working for the Russian foreign intelligence service compromised updates from IT services provider SolarWinds that were downloaded by 18,000 customers, with the attackers then going on to target around 100 of those customers including several US government agencies.

Other cyber criminals were able to carry out a supply chain attack using a vulnerability in software from Kaseya to launch a ransomware attack that affected thousands of its customers around the world. 

"The issue of the threat to IT service providers as part of a supply chain was clearly one of the features of the last year," said Simon Mehdian-Staffell, UK government affairs manager at Microsoft, speaking during a Chatham House Cyber 2021 Conference discussion on the rise of state-backed cyberattacks.

Some of these attacks have been identified because they've been on such a large scale, like the ones above. But there are means of supply chain compromise that are far less likely to draw attention, but can be very effective. And a more tightly focused campaign might be harder to detect.  

"Clearly there's trade-offs to be made between where they cast their net and the potential increased likelihood of being detected, so operators are having to make those trade-offs," said Jamie Collier, cyber threat intelligence consultant at Mandiant, also speaking during the Chatham House panel. 

While big attacks get the attention, the past few years have seen "other vectors of supply chain compromise that are dominating the numbers that maybe don't get the attention they deserve", he added. 

These lower-scale, less obvious supply chain attacks can be just as effective for cyber attackers, providing discreet pathways into networks. In particular, developer or mobile environments can provide this gateway – and cyber attackers have noticed.  

"First of all would be developer environments, we see a huge amount of supply chain compromise around there. And the second would be mobile." said Collier. 

"So, while we want to focus on the likes of SolarWinds, there is a wider landscape out there and it's important we recognise that broader spectrum," he added. 

Given the success of major supply chain attacks thus far, they'll remain a cybersecurity threat for the foreseeable future. 

"Supply chain attacks continue to be an attractive vector at the hand of sophisticated actors and the threat from these attacks is likely to grow. Especially as we anticipate technology supply chains will become increasingly complicated in the coming years," Lindy Cameron, CEO of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), said in a keynote address to the Cyber 2021 Conference. 

The threat of supply chain attacks means that organisations should examine what they can do to make themselves more resilient to cyberattacks. They should also examine how to protect themselves in the event of one of their suppliers unknowingly falling victim to a malicious cyber campaign. 

"First, organisations need to establish a clear security direction with their suppliers, asking for and incentivising good security through the supply chain. This is often relatively straightforward security practices, such as controlling how privileged access is managed," said Cameron. 

"Second, organisations should take an approach where their design is resilient if a technology supplier is compromised. The SolarWinds incident is a good example. To be blunt, if your SolarWinds installation couldn't talk directly to the internet – which it shouldn't have been able to do – then the whole attack was irrelevant to your network," she added. 

Organisations and their information security teams can go a long way to helping to protect the network from attacks by knowing exactly what's on it and what is connected to the internet. By ensuring infrastructure that doesn't need to be connected directly to the internet isn't directly connected, you can provide a major barrier to attacks being successful.  

www,vsoftsystems.co.za

These are the most in-demand jobs in SA's tech sector – here's what you'll need to bag them

Business Insider SA – 18 Nov  2021

• The Covid-19 pandemic has had a negative impact on most businesses, but those in the tech sector are booming.
• Information and Communications Technology (ICT), financial services, and FinTech companies are scaling up operations while other businesses transition to digital.
• This has created a surge in demand for IT workers.
• Some of the positions in most-demand are in cloud computing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, data analysis, and cybersecurity.

South Africa's technology sector is booming as more businesses move to digital in a trend which has been hastened by the Covid-19 pandemic. This promises high-paying job opportunities, but only for those with the right skills and experience.

While few industries have been left unscathed by the pandemic, tech companies, from e-commerce companies to cybersecurity firms, have rocketed. The Covid-19 pandemic, with its lockdowns and work-from-home instructions, has catapulted digital systems to the fore and forced brick and mortar businesses to revaluate.

These businesses have rushed to set-up digital systems, whether for online sales or to accommodate remote work, while others already in the tech space scale their operations. This has created great demand for IT workers, especially among Information and Communications Technology (ICT), financial services, and FinTech companies, according to leading recruitment company, Michael Page.

"MNCs [multinational corporations] in ICT and FinTech, and some companies like TakeALot.com and Jumia in the retail sector look at technology as an enabler of their business, and it is such companies that will remain desirable employers to top IT talent," says Robyn Stainbank, a senior consultant for technology for Michael Page in Africa.

A career in the technology sector, as well as being in demand, is lucrative, according to Michael Page's latest Market Overview and Hiring Insights Guide for 2022.

According to the report published earlier in November, yearly average salaries range from R350,000 (around R29,000 a month) for a network engineer in a small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) up to R3 million (R250,000 a month) for a Chief Information Officer (CIO) of an MNC.

Cloud computing, which allows the remote delivery and hosting of data storage, servers, databases, networking, and software, is in especially high demand, according to Michael Page.

Employees best equipped to capitalise on this demand and find a job in cloud computing field should have skills and experience in Amazon Web Services (AWS), Azure, DevOps, Docker, and Kubernetes.

"DevOps is a hybrid role that combines software development, operations, and quality assurance. Similar IT roles that can combine IT with other crucial skills for the business are in demand," says Stainbank.

Positions in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, software development, data science, and cybersecurity are also in high demand.

"Companies are moving beyond just reporting on data and management information to also using data for insights, which is essentially the commercialisation of that data," notes Michael Page's latest Market Overview and Hiring Insights Guide.

"Companies are developing their capabilities to make more data-driven decisions, and hence the demand for talent with data-related expertise."

Cybersecurity, ensuring that internet-connected systems are safe and secure, is also near the top of the agenda for companies that have needed to cater to remote work. And while employees begin trickling back into offices, hybrid work models are likely to become part of the new normal, coinciding with cyber criminals upping the ante.

"With more and more people working from home, cloud networks are becoming security targets. Cybersecurity is an issue of critical importance and companies are prioritising hiring talent with the expertise of putting safeguarding measures in place," explains Michael Page.

Stainbank adds that to fully meet the current and future demand in this sector, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) education needs to be prioritised in South Africa.

"Increased effort needs to be undertaken to modernise and develop sustainable education programmes with an emphasis on innovation, science, and technology," says Stainbank.

www.vsoftsystems.co.za