The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) is encouraged by the pending employment of an additional 301 immigration officers by the Department of Home Affairs.  This will be a massive boost to the Department’s capacity to enforce our immigration laws and the currently badly overstretched 868 officers tasked with this massive responsibility for the entire country, a welcome 35% boost for this critical frontline staffing.

It is essential that these new immigration officers be deployed to hotspots and work closely with the labour inspectors and target economic sectors known to flout our labour and immigration laws.

COSATU and our public service affiliate; the National Education, Health, and Allied Workers’ Union (NEHAWU) have long raised the alarm bells about the serious damage that years of reckless austerity budget cuts to frontline public services were doing to the ability of the state to enforce our laws and the consequences that this has for the economy and employment. 

Whilst appreciating this progressive step forward, much more must be done to ensure that Home Affairs crippled by a 60% staff vacancy rate and the Border Management Authority (BMA), hamstrung by a 75% vacancy rate are correctly resourced to fulfill their constitutional and legal obligations as well as their developmental mandates.  This requires not only budget reprioritisation, investments in institutional capacity and infrastructure, the tackling of corruption but also the filling of frontline vacancies and recruitment of critical skills.

Investing in the capacity of the Department and BMA to enforce our immigration laws requires funds but will yield much greater rewards in the short, medium and long term as citizens are able to access civic services without delays, scarce jobs are prioritised for unemployed South Africans and our unacceptably high levels of crime and corruption are tackled.  State organs without the most basic of resources will simply fail to deliver.

It is critical that the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement due to be tabled at Parliament at the end of October ensures that the Department, the BMA and other law enforcement organs have the necessary resources and are able to employ the personnel essential to deal with crime and corruption and create the conducive environment to unlock badly needed economic growth and create decent jobs in numbers.

COSATU will continue to engage government and Parliament to ensure that this happens.

Issued by COSATU

Matthew Parks (COSATU Parliamentary Coordinator)

Mobile: 082 785 0687

Email: matthew@cosatu.org.za