Hon Chair, the hon Gumede has called on hon members to advise the Minister on these regulations, and the Minister supports that. However, the Minister suggests that before he is advised, hon members should please read the regulations, so that the Minister is given advice that is not based on the media analysis of analysts who themselves have not read the regulations! [Laughter.] It will not help. [Applause.]
For example, one hon member spoke at length about the scarce skills permits. That does not exist any more - we now have a critical skills visa. We actually have one permit only, and that is the permanent residency permit. The member goes on and on about a whole number of things that he obviously has absolutely no idea about. [Laughter.] He says regulations will destroy tourism but he does not elaborate how. He has clearly read about this somewhere, but has not applied his own mind to it. [Interjections.]
The hon member says that the R1 300 is a barrier to entry and I find that preposterous. It is ludicrous to actually suggest that a skilled UK, US or German engineer could fail to afford E100 but can afford to pay from R4 000 up to R20 000 to an immigration practitioner. It is absolutely ludicrous! I cannot begin to understand the meaning of that. [Applause.]
There are many people who deliberately and maliciously overstay their time in South Africa, because they know that they can pay their way out if you say that the penalty is a fee. So what you have is an immigration regulation that serves the rich and punishes the poor, because the poor cannot afford to pay the penalty fee and the rich can. The rich deliberately overstay their time, don't renew their visas or permits, and know that if they are asked about it, they will just pull out their wallets and pay whatever fee they are charged. What happens to the poor who do not have the same amount of money?
We need to standardise the penalty to ensure that the penalty that applies to the poor African immigrant also applies to the rich European immigrant. [Applause.] That is what we need to do and that is what these regulations are trying to achieve.
We are also advised that the decision to give the programme for visa applications to a private sector company is apparently wrong because it will destroy jobs for immigration practitioners. The immigration practitioners are in business in so far as Home Affairs is inefficient. If you improve efficiency at Home Affairs, you then ruin their business. Therefore, in order to keep them in business, you must keep Home Affairs inefficient! [Laughter.] [Applause.] What type of logic is that? [Interjections.]