Andrew Stegmann

Home Affairs Department to Review Residency Status of Foreign Pastors

Home Affairs Minister Siyabonga Cwele says his department is considering a review of their status as permanent residents.

The Department of Home Affairs is set to take a hard look at high-flying pastors who’ve moved to South Africa to run lucrative ministries.

Home Affairs Minister Siyabonga Cwele says his department is considering a review of their status as permanent residents.

So-called “miracle” pastors are also facing closer scrutiny from the South African Revenue Service, while the African National Congress has called for rogue religious leaders to be investigated by the CRL Commission.

Cwele told Parliament’s home affairs committee that becoming a permanent resident of South Africa involves certain conditions that must be met.

“There are many of these things in the public [eye], like these priests who come from foreign countries to do work here. We’ve asked the department to review their status. Because if you come here, you say you’re coming to run a factory – there’s no factory called a church.”

The minister says it’s not about being against people from other countries.

“Quite clearly, we are not xenophobic but if you come to our country under certain conditions you must stick to those conditions.”

 

For information as to how Relocation Africa can help you with your Mobility, Immigration, Research, Remuneration, and Expat Tax needs, email marketing@relocationafrica.com, or call us on +27 21 763 4240.

Sources: [1], [2]. Image sources: [1], [2].

Andrew Stegmann

MPs Concerned About Home Affairs’ Contract for Visas

The Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs wants the renewal of a contract to outsource the processing of visas reviewed, likening it to the controversial Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) contract.

The committee recently resolved to write to Minister of Home Affairs Siyabonga Cwele to review the contract with VFS Global.

The committee heard that the contract with VFS Global was renewed for two years in December, without it going through the open tender procurement process. The department initially contracted VFS Global in 2010.

Chief director of immigration services at the department Richard Stolz said the extension of the contract “was legally provided for”. He said there would have been an “immense” reputational risk to the department if there was a discontinuity in their operating model.

But MPs are highly critical of the deal.

DA MP Haniff Hoosen said it destroyed job creation in South Africa because the deal meant that several local companies providing visa services had to close their doors.

ANC MP and chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Tourism Lusizo Sharon Makhubela-Mashele, who also attended the meeting, likened it to the South Africa Social Security Agency’s (Sassa’s) controversial dealings with CPS.

Committee chairperson Hlomani Chauke also subscribed to this idea.

“The extension creates a perception of another Cash Paymaster Services (CPS), which was the only service provider at the South Africa Social Security Agency said to have the capacity to render services. It is even more concerning that the department has extended the scope of work of VFS to establish services in countries it did not have previously,” Chauke said in a statement released after the meeting.

Several MPs said it seemed like the law was amended to deliberately give VFS Global a monopoly.

“Maybe, if we can’t conclude these issues, we must refer it to the Zondo commission [into state capture]. It is part of state capture,” Chauke said.

“Deliberately, you have amended legislation to create this monopoly. It killed all the small players.”

After being castigated by the committee, deputy director general of immigration services Jackie Mckay said: “We note all of the issues that are raised here.”

He acknowledged that it was not the first time that the committee had raised it.

“We take note of it.”

He said before the contract expired, they had started with an open tender process, but in April last year received a legal opinion to not follow such a process.

“That threw a spanner in the works,” Mckay said.

“We have no interest in who is delivering the service, as long as the service is delivered to us.”

Mckay said “serious, serious capacity problems” had been the bane of his existence.

“We just don’t have the staff.”

He said they had approached Treasury on several occasions, to no avail. This did little to appease the committee.

In his statement, Chauke said the committee would like to hear from Cwele about the possibility of going out on an open tender process and his plans to build capacity within the department to quickly process visa applications.

Cwele will be expected to respond to the committee within a week to ensure that the matter is dealt with before Parliament rises.

“While the committee acknowledges that Parliament has no right to inform the department on whom to contract for services, it would be a dereliction of its duty if it did not highlight cases where the department is deliberately breaking its own rules and guidelines,” read the statement.

“It is even more concerning that capacity in key tourism markets, such as Nigeria and India, is lacking, leading to few processed applications impacting on the numbers of tourists coming into the country,” Chauke said.

VFS Global describes itself as the “world’s largest outsourcing and technology services specialist for governments and diplomatic missions worldwide” on its website.

“The company manages the administrative and non-judgmental tasks related to visa, passport, identity management and other citizen services for its client governments. This enables them to focus entirely on the critical task of assessment.”

The company’s headquarters are in Dubai, its parentage is Swiss and it is a portfolio company of EQT, a global private equity firm headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden.

Last week, the committee also asked Cwele to investigate the department’s contract for the automated biometric identification system with technology company EOH.

 

For information as to how Relocation Africa can help you with your Mobility, Immigration, Research, Remuneration, and Expat Tax needs, email marketing@relocationafrica.com, or call us on +27 21 763 4240.

Sources: [1], [2]. Image sources: PhilippN [1], [2].

Andrew Stegmann

The Challenges of Developing and Maintaining Friendships as an Expat

Building friendships as an expat
Making new friends and maintaining an established friendship is one of the biggest challenges for expats. But remember: there are other people looking for friends like you! Others who are also new to your location, hoping to make indelible impressions that will translate into long-lasting friendships; friendships that will evolve into late evenings, trying out new restaurants together, and sharing brunch on Saturday mornings.

Forming long-lasting bonds
Some people are lucky to form lasting bonds. Given that most expats are almost always in transit, though, friendship in the form of seeing the other often lasts only a short while. Some stay friends on social media while others find that certain friendships fizzle out, having served their purpose.

And then there are those who are brave enough to start a new friendship all over again with another friend or couple. They are in it to win. They believe that, somewhere out there, is the friend (or group of friends) that will be just the match they are looking for! They will go on long weekend trips together and sit around a bonfire while their children play together. They will share many memories and milestones. That is the goal after all, to create a “new family” abroad, and this is what real friends are.

The challenge for long-term expats
We can all agree that one of the worst parts of being an expat is having to regularly say goodbye to friends. Either they are leaving, or you’re leaving, or both!

It is no easy task saying goodbye over and over again. It sometimes makes you wonder what the point is of investing in friendships when you know that one of you will move in a couple of years. This creates a sense of the temporary, of less stability. Friends come, you invest in them, then they leave and you may feel lonely in a host country which seems so familiar but is without real friends to enjoy it. Some long-term expats admit that they will always ask how long the other person will stay and, if the answer is a year or less, they distance themselves. They get detached to protect themselves from another painful goodbye.

Don’t let fear rule
Can you really limit who you like and want to spend time with? How can you stop yourself when you are attracted to a person’s friendship? Why lose an opportunity for friendship because of fear or a past experience? Perhaps it can help to approach this from a different perspective: because your time together may be limited, you know to enjoy the friendship to the fullest and make the most out of it.

What about the locals?
Here is another solution for having meaningful friendships as long-term expats: make friends with locals. Mingle with them, learn about the local culture and the language. Moreover, there is a bigger chance that the friendship will last longer as they are less likely to move away. Of course, nobody can guarantee that that your time together will be infinite.

Real friendships last a lifetime
Friends do not always have to be together to remain friends. Good friends may be separated for years, but when they meet again, they feel as close to each other as they used to. Real friendships last forever. And even though your friends might get busy with their own families, love life or work, all it will take is a little message or a reunion to rekindle all the happy memories and make new ones in the process.

For the long-term expats out there who have said goodbye countless times to their friends or who feel lonely because some of their best friends are a continent away, remember your friends in other places and know that the friendship and love are not gone! They are still there, perhaps in different times zones, but waiting for you to (re)connect or plan your next meet-up.

Remember: having to say goodbye to your friends is one of the worst things of being an expat, but saying hello to them again is just about the best thing!

Don’t let yourself be discouraged
Having a strong friendship is one of most beautiful parts of life and aspects of us being human: laughing out loud, going out for movies, singing songs, making crazy plans about marriage, career and life.

To all the expats out there sitting at home waiting for that Skype call, shorten the conversation on Skype, and get out.

Don’t be discouraged if your first evening at a social event doesn’t yield a Saturday spent at the beach with your newly found friends. Attend the next meeting, and the next one. Eventually, bonds will form, and you will have your coveted long weekends or day at the beach with friends.

It takes time to build long-lasting friendships, and common experiences and values will lead you to this gift.

 

For information as to how Relocation Africa can help you with your Mobility, Immigration, Research, Remuneration, and Expat Tax needs, email marketing@relocationafrica.com, or call us on +27 21 763 4240.

Sources: Vivian Chiona (Expat Nest) [1], [2]. Image sources: Val Vesa [1], [2].

Andrew Stegmann

Tax Reform, Digitization Key to African Financing Development

Africa must digitise its economies, broaden its tax base, prevent further deterioration of fiscal and debt positions, and aim for double-digit growth to achieve the UN 2030 global goals (SDGs), and the AU Agenda 2063 according to the 2019 Economic Report on Africa released recently at the Conference of Ministers.

This year’s Economic Report on Africa, a flagship publication of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) focuses on fiscal policy. Government revenues account for 21.4%, insufficient to meet countries’ development financing needs.

“The Report identifies several quick wins in Africa’s pursuit of additional fiscal space to finance its accelerated development,” Vera Songwe, the ECA’s Executive Secretary stated at the launch. “[It also] focuses on the instrumental role of fiscal policy in crowding-in investment and creating adequate fiscal space for social policy, including supporting women and youth-led small and medium enterprises.”

But, a decade away from the SDG, she added that “African countries continue to search for policy mixes to help accelerate the achievement of the SDGs. However, for many countries, financing remains the biggest bottleneck with implementing capacity a close second.”

While analysing and highlighting both challenges and opportunities, the Report also recommends comprehensive macroeconomic reforms aimed at building financial resilience, placing emphasis on the need for Africa to accelerate growth to double digits by 2030 and to boost investment from its current 25 per cent of GDP.

While economic growth in Africa remained moderate at 3.2 per cent in 2018 – due to “solid global growth, a moderate increase in commodity prices and favourable domestic conditions”, the Report emphasises that Africa needs to do more, and work towards achieving a fine balance between raising revenue and incentivizing investments, in order to boost growth.

In some of Africa’s largest economies—South Africa, Angola and Nigeria – the Report reveals, growth trended upwards but remains vulnerable to shifts in commodity prices. East Africa remains the fastest growing, at 6.1 per cent in 2017 and 6.2 per cent in 2018, while in West Africa, the economy expanded by 3.2 per cent in 2018, up from 2.4 per cent in 2017. Central, North and Southern Africa’s economies grew at a slower pace in 2018 compared to 2017.

On the issue of Africa’s debt burden, the Report reveals that debt levels remained high as African countries increased their borrowing, to ease fiscal pressures most of which have been precipitated by the narrowing of revenue streams that have gone on since the commodity price shocks of 2014.

It argues that African countries can increase government revenue by 12–20 per cent of GDP by adopting a policy framework that strengthens revenue mobilisation, including through digitalising African economies stating that digitization could enhance revenue mobilization by up to 6 per cent.

“Digital identification can broaden the tax base by making it easier to identify and track taxpayers and helping taxpayers meet their tax obligations. By improving tax assessments and administration, it enhances the government’s capacity to mobilize additional resources. Digital ID systems yield gains in efficiency and convenience that could result in savings to taxpayers and government of up to $50 billion a year by 2020.”

 

For information as to how Relocation Africa can help you with your Mobility, Immigration, Research, Remuneration, and Expat Tax needs, email marketing@relocationafrica.com, or call us on +27 21 763 4240.

Sources: [1], [2]. Image sources: Helloquence [1], [2].