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Talent Management

24th May 2013

By: Terence Creamer
Creamer Media Editor

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The 2013 departmental Budget-Vote cycle has more or less come and gone, with South Africa’s Cabinet Ministers having outlined their various programmes and spending priorities for the current fiscal year.

There were a number of highlights – from Public Enterprises Minister Malusi Gigaba’s assertion that 50% of all Eskom’s coal should be supplied by emerging black coal miners from 2018 to Energy Minister Dipuo Peters’ statement that a new nuclear programme had the potential of ‘leapfrogging’ South Africa into a knowledge economy.

But the presentation made by Home Affairs Minister Naledi Pandor caught my eye for containing some fresh and heartening points of emphasis.

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In her May 9 address, Pandor stressed that, while immigration needed to be administered effectively, it should also be encouraged. “We have to compete in a global marketplace for skills. It’s something we have not addressed as yet, but the National Development Plan has indicated that we need to do so,” she told lawmakers.

If the issue of immigration was to be managed competently, South Africa would be in a position to attract the critical skills it required to “expand the economy and promote trade and investment for job creation and development”.

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She also acknowledged that the country had to compete globally to “attract the best and the brightest to work with us in building a better South Africa in a better Africa”.

Now, this was an important signal, as it would be something of an understatement to assert that Home Affairs has not, hitherto, been perceived as being immigrant friendly. If fact, many inside, but especially outside, government view the department as more of a hindrance to South Africa’s contestation for global talent than a help.

Reflective of this position were some of the figures outlined by Pandor in the very same address. As part of a strategy to attract skills, 50 000 scarce-skills permits were made available. However, only 20 673 work permits were issued in 2011.

“South Africa is one of the most open economies in the world and we want those with the right skills to come here: the investors and the entrepreneurs who will create the businesses and the jobs of tomorrow and the scientists who will help keep SA at the heart of the great advances in medicine, biotech, advanced manufacturing and communications. They merit a permit policy that shows we are ready to compete with other countries for global talent,” Pandor said.

She also promised increased efficiency in the issuance of permits to investors, while acknowledging the many complaints about delays in issuing permits.

Having a Minister with such a progressive mindset is definitely a step in the right direction. It is also in line with a growing international realisation that migration is not necessarily a sign of development failure. In fact, the United Nations secretary-general’s special representative for migration, Peter Sutherland, argued recently that migration should be integrated into the world’s post-2015 develop- ment agenda.

The challenge now is to ensure that Pandor’s message is shared across all levels of the organisation and for firm action to be taken against officials whose conduct contradicts it.

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