BOTSWANA: Govt hardens stance on hiring foreigners

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

JOHANNESBURG, 29 Nov 2005 (IRIN) - In a further hardening of its stance against employing foreigners, the Botswana government has announced that it will not be renewing the work permits of those working as teachers and drivers and will probe the hiring of artisans in the mining sector.

Education minister Jacob Nkate told IRIN that the government had decided to freeze employment of new foreign teachers because a large number of local graduate teachers were unemployed.

"We decided to stop the recruitment of new foreign teachers because there are a large number of unemployed but qualified citizens. Those foreign teachers with current permits will carry on working but they will not renew them when they expire. We will only employ foreigners for local jobs if no qualified locals can be found," Nkate explained to IRIN.

According to the minister, the education department employs 556 foreign teachers. Although there has been a steady increase in the number of trained Batswana teachers, the country still faces a severe teacher shortage in subjects such as home economics, accounting and other commercial subjects. On the other hand, over 160 of the estimated 500 unemployed local graduates can teach Setswana, the indigenous language.

The authorities have also announced a police crackdown on foreign holders of Public Service Vehicle (PSV) driver's licences, which allow them to drive public transport vehicles. The issuing of PSV licences to foreigners was banned in April this year to protect local jobs.

Despite the ban on issuing PSV licences to non-Batswana, the licensing authority did not immediately enforce the law and continued to issue the documents to foreigners. An outcry by threatened local drivers, who accuse migrants of accepting jobs for a pittance, led to the current police crackdown.

In the past two weeks, the Department of Road Transport and Safety has arrested at least 60 drivers, most of them Zimbabweans, in the capital, Gaborone.

"All licensing officers were ordered to stop issuing such licences to foreigners as early as January this year. However, some officers have not been enforcing the law, so the police are now arresting illegal holders of PSV licences," Ingrid Kittman, a senior officer with the ministry, told IRIN.

A decision not to renew work permits to skilled labour in Botswana's mining sector followed a petition by 31 qualified but unemployed Batswana mining artisans in the second city, Francistown, to the Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs, who requested that work on a mine expansion project employing foreigners at the expense of qualified locals be stopped.

The petitioners also want the government to freeze the employment process and investigate how 35 foreigners on the project obtained their work permits, and are demanding that the probe into the employment of large numbers of South Africans and Zimbabweans be extended to all mines in northern Botswana.

They claim the permits were irregularly obtained from the labour ministry's Gaborone office instead of the local Francistown office.

The petition followed calls by local MP Pono Moatlhodi for a commission of enquiry into the large numbers of foreigners working in the country's mining sector while qualified locals roamed the streets.

Besenia Buraga, head of the regional labour office in Francistown, told IRIN the employment process for the mines was highly irregular and Botswana's labour laws were constantly violated by foreign employers.

"It is clear that there was a lot of unfairness and Botswana laws were violated. We have negotiated with some of the companies in the past. Some of them tell us that they have no time to train inexperienced locals; others hide behind excuses, like being here for a short period. It is true that very few locals have been employed for artisan's jobs in the mines," Buraga told IRIN.

Although government officials defend the policy of preventing the employment of foreigners as part of its citizen empowerment programme, human rights groups have warned of an increasing incidence of xenophobia in government, parliament and among ordinary Batswana.

In his state of the nation address early this month, President Festus Mogae said government would push ahead with a review of its hiring criteria to remove stringent employment requirements, like experience, as they undermined the country's ability to employ qualified citizens.

He however warned the country against using the citizen empowerment drive to hide xenophobic tendencies.

"While recommitting ourselves to a greater sense of unity, we must strive to avoid utterances that suggest hostility to foreigners. Xenophobia, like all forms of negativism, is ultimately self-destructive to the perpetrator," Mogae pointed out.

Presidential spokesman Jeff Ramsay said it was not government policy to remove foreigners from the country's workforce, but noted that the country needed to give a chance to the growing number of unemployed local graduates.

The ban on the renewal of permits follows the expulsion of two foreigners this year: Australian citizen Prof Kenneth Good was expelled after criticising the government, while Zimbabwean journalist Rodrick Mukumbira had his permit revoked without any explanation and was ordered to leave the country within a week.

[ENDS]