“A new immigration bill is before the South African parliament. One of its key professed
aims is to enable South African industry to acquire the foreign skills it needs to grow,
while training South Africans. Up to now immigration in South Africa has been regulated by the old Aliens Control Act an apartheid construct, which was by extension not geared for the new realities of the global economy. The question now is to what extent the new immigration policy is geared towards South Africa’s developmental challenges? To what extent can an effective immigration policy reduce the skill shortage in South Africa? And how, in the words of The Economist magazine referring to Europe, can it reconcile its economic need for more immigrants with its apparent political distaste for them?”
