The National Treasury has advised its labour and employment counterpart to begin the recruitment process for the 10 000 labour inspectors that President Cyril Ramaphosa said would be employed to mitigate illegal migration.
Ahead of delivering the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) yesterday, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana told journalists that the government aimed to have the labour inspectors begin their work next April.
Godongwana said labour inspectors were part of the broader immigration system and the government plans to employ 10 000 over the next three years.
He said provision has been made for labour inspectors and for the Border Management Authority, but it will depend on the performance of various law enforcement agencies to curb illegal migration.
“The last discussion I had with the Minister of Labour and Employment (Nomakhosazana Meth) was to say that they should advertise and employ now, so that come April, they should be able to start,” he said.
“So, that process is in place; it is over the medium-term expenditure framework.”
Godongwana explained that the delay in hiring inspectors was due to the limited timeframe between Ramaphosa’s announcement in his State of the Nation Address (Sona) and the tabling of the National Budget two weeks later, as the Budget was “already locked”.
He said it was too late by that time for the National Treasury to consider some of the Sona commitments in the Budget, and those commitments were processed for the next fiscal year.
“That’s what we’ve done with the labour inspectors; we have processed them as part of the next fiscal year. What we have been advising the department and the Minister of labour and employment is to begin to advertise now, so that come next year, come April, the labour inspectors can start.”
Godongwana said the major problem with illegal immigration was enforcement or lack thereof by the police, border management, immigration officers, and labour inspectors at the level of employment.
He explained that the 10 000 labour inspectors will be employed over the next three years to make sure that employers do not employ illegal immigrants.
In his speech, Godongwana said: “In addition to the allocations to the Border Management Authority this year, we are also increasing the number of labour inspectors. The government is also considering measures to strengthen the capacity of the border inspectorate and the immigration officers to address our challenges with illegal migration.”
In his Sona speech in February, Ramaphosa said that, in addressing illegal immigration, the police, Department of Home Affairs and labour inspectors will work together to crack down on violations of existing immigration, labour and other laws.
“Employers that hire foreign nationals without the required visas will face the full might of the law. To tighten enforcement, we will hire an additional 10 000 labour inspectors this year,” he said.