IMSC : NEWS FLASHES

•	Pretoria - Almost 35 000 quota work permits for foreigners with scarce and critical skills were made available by Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula recently. She issued a list of quota work permits for selected professions, which means foreign nationals with the required qualification and work experience will be allowed to enter South Africa without first having secured employment. Fifty-three occupations - including call centre managers, clinical and biomedical engineers, technologists, and precision metal trade workers - were on the list of wanted skills. This is the second year that the quota work permits were issued but Mapisa-Nqakula admitted that last year's uptake was "not overwhelming". "It was much, much less than we expected," she said. Successful applicants under the quota system are required to find a job in their field of expertise within 90 days of being issued with permits to enter South Africa. The work permits remain valid for as long as the permit holders are employed in their area of expertise, even if they change jobs.

•	UPDATE ON PERMANENT RESIDENCE The Minister of Home Affairs, Mrs N Mapisa-Nqakula, issued a press statement on the 27th June 2006 in which she acknowledged that the Department of Home Affairs has a severe backlog of Permanent Residence Applications to address. When she took the decision to centralise the adjudication process, the Department’s Head Office in Pretoria inherited applications that were pending in at least 25 Provincial offices. The Director-General has registered a backlog project with the Department’s internal audit division. Everything possible is being done to alleviate the backlog and the Department’s strategic plan will indicate that it has set a milestone to have adjudicated all pending applications by July 2007. Thereafter, a Service Standard Plan is in place to finalise all applications with a period of 6-12 months.

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A ‘SAFE HAVEN ’ COUNTRY

A national Sunday newspaper referred to a CNN report on 12/8/06 that South Africa is labelled as a ‘safe-haven’ country despite its fair share of crime, especially after the terrorist scare in the UK and USA. Avis Car Hire reported a drastic increase in car hire by foreign visitors to South Africa.

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SOUTH AFRICA IS AMONGST THE TOP 20

Furthermore, Dr Roelof Botha, top SA economist, was a guest speaker at the Fancourt Hotel & Golf Estate in George on 11/8/06 during which he reported that South Africa is amongst the top 20 Emerging Market Economies for 2005 and amongst the top 30 countries internationally. The Government has launched a strategy aimed at lifting the country’s economic growth rate to 6 percent (th Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative of SA – ASGISA).

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