migrants

The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) plans to undertake a comprehensive review of the permit system to make it easier for foreign investors to live and work in South Africa.

DHA director-general, Mavuso Msimang, says discussions will be held with labour, business and other departments to develop a policy on economic migrants.

Msimang says that the department will look at the duration of the permits for foreign investors, who would not be interested in investing here if the period of their stay was limited, for example, to two years.

The Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa (CoRMSA) has warned that restricting migration is not the solution to South Africa's problems, and could even hamper the country's development.

It its newly-released report, CoRMSA says that as the economy slow down, with South Africans beginning to lose jobs, there will be growing pressure for even more restrictive migration policies.