Gigaba urges ‘South Africa-first’ employment policies
Minister of public enterprises Malusi Gigaba has urged local businesses to employ South Africans first, as it has emerged that key industries prefer to outsource their labour to migrants.
Speaking at a hospitality sector representatives meeting on Tuesday (31 January), Gigaba discussed at length the country’s current compliance issues, relating to laws of the country in respect of employment of immigrants over local citizens.
The requirement to employ 60% South African citizens was a major talking point during the meeting. Delegates expressed concern over companies failing to comply with the law, and the impact on communities, as well as the importance of balancing international migration with security needs of the state.
Gigaba even went so far as to admit that the country had not effectively dealt with the issue of immigration in the past and that a proactive approach needed to be taken on migration to ensure positive spin-offs for the country and its people.
This “South Africa first” policy to employment comes just weeks after the US president Donald Trump’s inauguration following a campaign platform built on similar employment promises.
“I made it quite clear from the start of the meeting that we needed a very strong partnership with business, and that it was important to clarify issues and act accordingly even before we are pressurized by the public,” said Gigaba.
“As we have said, this carries potential to fuel perceptions that businesses exploit migrants to lower wages and conditions, while locals suffer in a sea of poverty and want. This does much further to undermine South Africa’s economic and developmental goals that we have outlined, as a nation, collaboratively, and consultatively, in the National Development Plan.”
While Gigaba focused primarily on the hospitality, construction and mining sectors it appears the problem may not just be limited to those sectors.
At a Deloitte media round table, on Tuesday 31 January, a spokesperson for the financial services company told BusinessTech that several well-known multi-national (unnamed) companies were choosing to bring their own citizens into the country to work on projects due to skills shortages.
It was noted that South Africa’s visa requirements were no stricter than any other country’s, but because of the skills shortage issue, the matter had been exacerbated.
As a result, the biggest problems these companies were facing was not meeting the requirements of the requisite work permits and visas, but rather the massive backlog in processing they were faced with by South Africa’s migration departments.
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