{"id":246663,"date":"2018-05-23T13:01:34","date_gmt":"2018-05-23T11:01:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=246663"},"modified":"2018-05-23T13:01:34","modified_gmt":"2018-05-23T11:01:34","slug":"home-affairs-is-not-tracking-how-many-south-africans-are-emigrating-but-that-could-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/246663\/home-affairs-is-not-tracking-how-many-south-africans-are-emigrating-but-that-could-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Home Affairs is not tracking how many South Africans are emigrating – but that could change"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Australian Department of Home Affairs recently confirmed<\/a> <\/strong>that over 200 South Africans have applied to emigrate to the country by applying for a humanitarian visa.<\/p>\n

In addition, immigration consultants Sable International have reported an increase<\/a> <\/strong>in the number of South Africans looking to emigrate to the UK following a number of recent legislation changes.<\/p>\n

However, in a recent parliamentary questions and answers session, the Department of Home Affairs confirmed that it was not actively tracking South Africans who were leaving the country for emigration purposes.<\/p>\n

Responding to a question by the\u00a0Freedom Front Plus’ Dr Pieter Mulder, the department said that\u00a0South African citizens that leave the borders of the Republic do not register their purpose to emigrate, meaning that there was no formal record kept by home affairs.<\/p>\n

“There is no provision in legislation that compel the South African citizen to do so; furthermore there is no reason to do so as South Africa permits dual citizenship,” it said.<\/p>\n

“The only instance the department keeps these records, is when South African citizens are compelled by countries not permitting dual citizenship, to renounce their citizenship; moreover the information in this regard would not necessarily provide an adequate response to the question raised.”<\/p>\n

Set to change?<\/strong><\/p>\n

In July 2017, the Department of Home Affairs officially\u00a0gazetted a white paper<\/a><\/strong> which would compel South Africans who plan to be out of the country for longer than three months\u00a0to\u00a0register with the government.<\/p>\n

This marks the first time home affairs has included emigration control in official policy – something it directly attributes\u00a0to the high number of skilled workers and taxes leaving the country.<\/p>\n

“Like many other developing countries, South Africa loses a significant proportion of its skilled workforce every year. However, little attention has been paid to maintaining links with South Africans who have settled in other countries,” stated the white paper.<\/p>\n

“The current international migration policy framework does not cover citizens who wish or have migrated to other countries. That is, the current international migration policy does not enable South Africa to proactively manage and harness emigration for development purposes.”<\/p>\n

Using recent census data, the white paper\u00a0estimated that more than 520,000 South Africans had emigrated between 1989 and 2003, with the numbers growing by about 9% a year.<\/p>\n

About 120,000 of those emigrants had professional qualifications.<\/p>\n

“This represents about 7% of the total stock of professionals employed in South Africa and is more than eight times the number of professionals immigrating to South Africa in the same period.”<\/p>\n

“Another factor to note is that many persons classified as white under apartheid emigrated, mostly in the 1990s, due to push factors that include fear of change and opportunities open to professionals.”<\/p>\n

“In recent years, however, white emigrants appear to be outnumbered by growing numbers of black professionals who have joined the global skills market.”<\/p>\n

\n

Read:\u00a0South Africans can visit these 102 countries visa-free right now<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Home Affairs said that it is not currently tracking how many South Africans are leaving the country, but new proposed laws could change that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":85688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-246663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246663"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246663\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":246699,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246663\/revisions\/246699"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}