Ground up  21 September 2020

Concerns are growing about the number of refugees’ and asylum seekers’ documents expiring at the end of October. The Department of Home Affairs has not said how it intends dealing with the disruption caused by Covid-19, insofar as this paperwork is concerned.

The Scalabrini Centre in Cape Town has written to home affairs asking for the department’s plan regarding documents held by refugees that are on the point of expiring.

“We have not seen the plan. We are hopeful that the department will make it public,” said Sally Gandar, head of advocacy and legal advisor at Scalabrini Centre.

Scalabrini hopes the plan will include longer renewal periods for asylum documentation. It also wants an online renewal system and for people to be allowed to renew their documentation at the refugee reception office nearest to where they live.

Gandar said, “The minister indicated in a parliamentary reply that on 1 January 2020, there were 188,296 active asylum files on home affairs systems, and in a further parliamentary reply that there were 80,758 refugees with active Section 24 certificates recorded on the National Immigration Information System (NIIS). 

“All of these people are affected by the current situation, though in varying ways.” (Section 24 certificates allow asylum seekers to stay in the country for two years.)

Gandar confirmed that home affairs provided for an automatic renewal of documentation for refugees during lockdown. “The directions gazetted by home affairs on 10 June provided for a deemed extension of all documentation issued in terms of the Refugees Act (this includes asylum seeker documents and refugee documents) until 31 July.

“Home affairs gazetted further directions on 31 July which provided for a deemed extension of all documentation until 31 October 2020. These directions are presently in force,” she said.

“The directions state that after the deemed extension date, asylum and refugee document holders will have a month in which to renew their documentation. 

“The impact will likely be that the refugee reception offices across the country will need to expect and plan for high numbers of people coming to renew their documentation within that time frame.”

Despite home affairs’ announcements, refugees and asylum seekers have been struggling to access services during lockdown. They have faced difficulties with banks blocking their accounts, hospitals refusing to treat them and schools refusing to enrol their children. They have also encountered difficulties while applying for unemployment insurance.

A refugee from Eastern Congo, who arrived in Cape Town in 2006 and has two children born in South Africa, said that his asylum document expired during lockdown. He also lost his job during this period. He said he went to the labour department in Bellville to apply for UIF, but was told that his document was not valid. He is struggling to pay school fees, buy groceries and pay rent.

“Nobody would like to employ me with an expired document. Not having proper documents also affects my children’s future. I am struggling to register my Grade 7 child for high school,” he said.

Questions were sent to home affairs spokesperson Siyabulela Qoza and media manager David Hlabane, but no response has been received.

www.samigration.com

A streamlined, efficient and well-integrated civil service is the hallmark of a capable state, but South Africa has fallen in a number of areas, says President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Writing in his weekly open letter to the public, Ramaphosa said that the government’s key priority is to build a ‘capable state’.

“If we are to build a more capable state we have to seriously and urgently address the shortcomings in the organisation and the capacity of the public service,” he said.

Ramaphosa said that the view that the public service is bloated is misplaced. “Public servants include officials and administrators, but they also include doctors, nurses, policemen and women and teachers who play an invaluable role in keeping the wheels of our country turning.

“The real issue is whether – given its size, cost and needs of our country – the public service is performing as it should. The experience of our people is that in several areas, the state is falling short of expectations,” he said

The president said that there are some fundamental problems in the public service that the government is now working to fix. These include:

• The ‘political-administrative’ interface, where lines of accountability at the most senior levels of the state have become blurred. Political office bearers such as Ministers, MECs and Mayors often veer towards getting involved in administrative matters that should be the responsibility of professional public servants.

• Public service managers must be given the space, the means and the resources to manage.

• Senior appointments are sometimes made on political considerations rather than expertise. This severely limits the capacity and effective functioning of the state.

• As much as the ranks of our civil service comprise individuals committed to driving government’s programme of action, it has also over the years been associated with patronage. This is manifested through the appointment of people into senior positions based on considerations other than their capability to execute the tasks of the office they are appointed to.

Increased training

Ramaphosa said that the building of ‘a capable, ethical and developmental state’ is now among government’s foremost priorities.

“We want the public service to be oriented towards efficiency, performance and developmental outcomes.” The president said that the civil service should also attract high-calibre and qualified candidates.

“As one of the ways of achieving this, the National Development Plan (NDP) proposes a formal graduate recruitment scheme for the public service. Our people want the best and the brightest in society to serve them.

“The civil service must be seen as a career destination of choice by those who want to make a difference in the life of their country, and not merely as a comfortable 9-to-5 desk job or a place to earn a salary with minimal effort.

“Should some still harbour this view they should take advantage of opportunities to exit the public service to make way for those who are up to the task.”

Wage dispute

Ramaphosa’s comments come as government and public sectors workers gear up for a legal battle around an ongoing wage dispute.

The case focuses on whether the government has to pay almost R4o billion in salary increases to public sector workers. Business Day reports that the government wants the court to declare that doing so will be unlawful.

The increases the state agreed to pay as part of a multi-term wage agreement signed in 2018 were supposed to take effect on 1 April, but the government said it does not have the money to pay.

The issues are expected to come to a head in the coming weeks as workers gear up for the start of strike season in South Africa.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) says it will begin mobilising for major strike action in the first week of October. The trade federation plans to go on a general strike on 7 October, with the protest focusing on corruption and perceived inaction by the government.

Public wages are set through bargaining with unions and agreements stay in force for three years. The current agreement is in place until March 2021.

However, in February the government asked to review the last leg of a three-year pay agreement because it said it couldn’t afford it.

The coronavirus pandemic has further exacerbated the country’s financial problems with unions and government now set for a showdown.

National Treasury plans on cutting R160 billion from the public sector wage bill over the next three years – a position that has been met with opposition from public sector trade unions

www.samigration.com

News24 -  23 September 2020

 

 Former president Kgalema Motlanthe has bemoaned South Africa's treatment of undocumented immigrants.

Motlanthe said George Bizos had no citizenship and remained stateless for 31 years after the South African government denied him citizenship.

He said there is a rush to send the oppressed back to their troubled homes, rendering them stateless beings floating between borders.

Former president Kgalema Motlanthe has bemoaned South Africa's treatment of undocumented immigrants, saying the country largely excludes migrants from society.

While honouring the memory of renowned human rights lawyer, advocate George Bizos SC, the former president alluded to his dissatisfaction with how immigrants were treated by the government and South African society.

Motlanthe was speaking at Bizos' memorial service, organised by the ANC.

Bizos died at the age of 92 from natural causes on 9 September.

He said: South Africa's undocumented migrants, economic refugees and asylum seekers look for hope and opportunity in South Africa. Yet they have been largely excluded from our society. There is a rush to send the oppressed back to their troubled homes, rendering them stateless beings floating between borders.

Motlanthe said South Africa's treatment of immigrants exposed fault lines in society.

"Population movement[s] are in constant motion and the ghost of the past now set the stage for the conflict of the present. Our response to migrants and refugees have exposed enduring and dangerous fault lines in our societies. Migration remains central to politics, economy, society and formation of culture on [the] African continent.

"This raises fundamental questions to our response as a nation, the politics of identity and the ideals of humanity. What started in the hope for a better future, these treacherous journeys to build a new life are often met with racism, segregation, xenophobia, discrimination and further violence. The critical question is, 'Are we treating these migrants differently to how Uncle George was treated?'" the former president said.

For more than a decade, South Africa has wrestled with the identity of being xenophobic, with many foreign nationals killed, attacked or blamed for the ailing economy.

In February, City Press reported that Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said its processes for undocumented immigrants were inadequate and this was exacerbated by budget cuts, shoddy systems and overburdened state machinery.

Last year, home affairs spent close to R42 million to fly undocumented immigrants to their countries.

Motlanthe said South Africa's approach to foreign nationals was denying

the country a bounty of legal minds such as Bizos. "However, given the opportunity to register into education, to apply their minds, skills and creativity, become professionals in their own right, would we not find a bounty of advocates, specialists, contributors and builders such as Uncle George?" he said.

Bizos – famously known as former president Nelson Mandela's treason trial lawyer and confidant – fled Nazi-torn Greece, his country of origin, at the tender age of 13. The family immigrated to South Africa.

Motlanthe said Bizos, who he affectionately called 'Uncle George', had no citizenship and remained stateless for 31 years after the South African government refused him citizenship on the grounds that he was not fit and proper.

Owing to his undiminished and relentless spirit, this challenge did not stop Bizos from being a loyal contributor and builder of South Africa, Motlanthe said.

www.samigtration.com

Face2 Face  -  21, 2020

For most Nigerian businessmen, holding a Nigerian passport raises a red flag and would often require extra documentation for validation. Nigeria is placed 95 on the annual Henley Passport Index which ranks the world’s passport according to the countries they can visit without a prior visa. Ranked 95, Nigerian passport holders can visit two fewer countries now than they could in 2010 without a visa.

Faced with such difficulties, wealthy Nigerians are buying citizenship in Caribbean nations to ease business travel, get elite education for their wards and have a second home for holidays.

St. Lucia, a small island in the Caribbean, has issued 60 passports to Nigerians under its Citizenship Investment Program (CIP). The program grants resident permit or citizenship to foreigners for a fee.

“That pricing model has resonated well with the Nigerian community,” said Nestor Alfred, chief executive of St. Lucia’s CIP office. “A lot of our Nigerian applications consist of families.”

Other Caribbean islands such as Dominica and St. Kitts and Nevis also offer investment migration programs with minimum costs of $100,000 and $150,000 respectively.

Citizenship by investment is estimated to be a $3 billion industry and it is believed that around 40,000 passports have been issued under the program. The program attracts high-net-worth individuals from poor countries or weak passport power.

Tari Best, a Nigerian logistics business owner, told The Economist that a Grenadian passport opens market opportunities for him. “We are treated as equals,” he said.

Henley and Partners, which advises people on how to acquire additional nationality, recently opened a new office in Nigeria. It also has offices in Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa.

“The reason we opened in Nigeria is because we saw significant potential in the market with growth in private wealth without global mobility for high net worth individuals,” said Paddy Blewer, public relations director at Henley & Partners. “What you have is a community of wealthy individuals who cannot travel without visas.”

Nigeria and South Africa account for 85 percent of Henley and Partner’s customers with Nigerians having a keen interest in Caribbean countries, the firm said.

An IMF report in 2016 on citizenship investment said: “Offering citizenship in return for investment has been a “win-win” for some small Caribbean states. The substantial inflows of funds from these programs have helped boost employment and growth. Inflows to the public sector alone in St. Kitts and Nevis had grown to nearly 25 percent of GDP as of 2013.”

St Kitts and Nevis is one of the pioneers of the Citizenship by Investment program, which it launched as far back as 1984 to help develop the country. The program has since been implemented by other countries as a means of generating revenue.

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The Criminal Procedure Amendment Bill seeks to **expunge certain criminal records that result from an admission of guilt payment.

  Justice and Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola said the     C**ovid-19 pandemic put the brakes on the introduction of the  legislation.*

  * *The bill will be out for public comment next month.*

South Africans who have paid an admission of guilt fine for trivial offences will no longer have to worry about incurring a criminal record. That's if Justice and Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola has his way with the Criminal Procedure Amendment Bill that seeks to expunge certain criminal records that result from an admission of guilt payment.

In response to ACDP MP Steve Swart's written parliamentary question on when the government will introduce legislation preventing an admission of guilt fine from incurring a criminal record, Lamola said his department was addressing the matter through the amendment bill.

"The amendment bill has unfortunately been delayed because of Covid-19,"Lamola added.

At present, Section 57 of the Criminal Procedure Act (CPA), provides for the admission of guilt in respect of the offence and for the payment of a stipulated fine without an appearance in court.

Section 57A of the CPA provides for the admission of guilt and the payment of a fine, after appearing in a court, but before the accused has entered a plea.

"In terms of Section 57(6) of the CPA, where a fine was paid, the money, together with the summons or written notice to appear must be forwarded to the clerk of the magistrate's court which has jurisdiction, and the clerk must complete the criminal record book for admissions of guilt, whereupon the accused is deemed to have been convicted and sentenced by the court in respect of the offence in question.

"The immediate practical effect of paying an admission of guilt fine is that the accused is excused from court appearance and upon completion of the formalities as prescribed in Section 57(6), deemed to have been convicted and sentenced by the court in respect of the relevant charge," he said.

Lamola also said not all admission of guilt fines attracted a criminal record. "Section 341 of the CPA provides for the compounding of certain minor offences and for the payment of a fine in respect of minor offences [which] relate to by-laws and minor traffic offences. The payment of a fine in terms of Section 341 of the CPA does not attract a previous conviction.

"In short, the CPA allows magistrates to set an amount on the spot on the admission of guilt."

"It is also worth noting that, since this is a judicial function, our department has had engagements with the chief magistrates to try to get uniformity on such fines. There appears to be uniformity within magisterial clusters, but not necessarily uniformity between clusters," Lamola said.

In May, the National Prosecuting Authority declined to prosecute about 25% of lockdown offences Acting Deputy National Director of Public Prosecutions Rodney de Kock told the Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services that 25% of the dockets of lockdown offences were not enrolled.

For the majority of the offences, offenders were given a later court date. He said a draft legislative proposal, in the form of the bill, would revise the current admission of guilt fine "as provided for in the CPA".

This will provide for:

  * The payment of fines that do not give rise to a previous conviction;

  * The payment of admission of guilt fines that do give rise to previous convictions;

  * The expungement of certain criminal records that results from  admission of guilt fines;

  * The expungement of criminal records that result from admission of  guilt fines that have been paid in respect of trivial offences  before the enactment of the proposed law;

  * A process to identify and prescribe the offences, subject to parliamentary approval, that will be subject to the payment of fines that do not give rise to a previous conviction; and

  * A bettered review process in respect of the payment of admission of  guilt fines that do give rise to previous convictions.

Lamola said the legislative proposal was at an advanced stage of completion and that a bill would be out for public consultation next month.

www.samigration.com