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"IT IS ERRONEOUS TO PIN THE TASK OF ATTRACTING NEEDED SKILLS TO OUR COUNTRY ON THE SYSTEM OF MIGRATION CONTROL ALONE"
Your sensationalist Cover Story (March 9) on immigration has no basis. It states that Minister Buthelezi has been side-stepped and that policies and legislation are being reformulated by the Office of the President. This article appeared on the same day that the relevant Cabinet committee passed on to Cabinet a memorandum seeking to table the Immigration Bill in parliament after a workshop aimed at providing a better understanding for Cabinet of the immigration service's purposes and how it would be brought into operation.
For the Office of the President to be drafting legislation behind closed doors through a non-existent "inner circle" would make a mockery of five years of open, transparent and laborious policy formulation and negotiations and of a style of collegial governance. This is not how our government operates. It is also preposterous to suggest such a vote of no confidence in Minister Buthelezi, who has provided much-appreciated leadership to his department and to the formulation of the strategies for its needed restructuring and reform.
It is also erroneous to pin the task of attracting needed skills to our country on the system of migration control alone. Migration control is only the gatekeeper which may make entering SA more or less difficult. It is the responsibility of all departments, stakeholders and role players to make SA attractive to people we may need to foster economic growth. Interdepartmental co-ordination on such efforts should be kept distinct from the formulation of a new system of migration control.
Your article seems to be aimed at creating divisions and lending support to an agenda which is not that of our department, government or the Presidency. We reject with contempt the insinuation it implicitly contains on the integrity of President Mbeki and the credibility and leadership of Minister Buthelezi.
C Nqakula, Deputy Minister, Home Affairs.
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