Gloom driving emigration

5 july 2015 Hanfred + Idette Rauch have written a piece on their imprending emigration

5 july 2015 Hanfred + Idette Rauch have written a piece on their imprending emigration

Published Jul 6, 2015

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Cape Town - Many highly-qualified South Africans of all races are opting to leave the country in search of a better future.

There has been a reported spike in queries since the beginning of the year with load shedding, crime and corruption cited as among the reasons people are leaving.

A Facebook site, South Africans Migrating to Australia, started 10 months ago, has already more than 8 400 members with an average of 28 new members every day - more than one new member every hour.

Marlene Prentice, a migration agent with Migration Network Australia, said that since January there had been a massive increase in enquiries from South Africans wanting to emigrate to Australia.

“The increase has been seven times higher than the same period last year.”

Prentice said enquiries were from all race groups and the language split was 60 percent Afrikaans and 40 percent English speaking.

She said enquiries received varied - from highly-qualified people such as dentists, teachers and accountants to people without any qualifications such as receptionists and office workers.

Load shedding, followed by an increase in crime, lack of law and order and a loss of confidence in the government of the country were the main reasons cited by people wanting to leave.

“We started another forum in May 2014 called ‘Australian sponsored jobs’ mainly for South Africans who need job sponsorships and we have been adding more than two members per hour,” Prentice added.

Peter Woodberg, managing director of North Shore Immigration in New Zealand, said queries from South Africans had doubled in recent months.

“New Zealand has a low crime rate, balanced politics, and strong economy. We are having a property boom right now and we came out of the global financial crisis far better than most countries, everything works, and there are plenty of jobs.”

Immigration lawyer, Chris Watters, said enquiries to their practice had gone from about one every two weeks to about nine or 10 a day since the start of the year.

The most common reason given for leaving was the on-going disruption to life and business from load shedding.

Countries at the top of the list are the US, followed by the UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.

But Watters says there isn’t necessarily an easy fit for all South Africans.

“Each country has its own list of desired skills or attributes it is looking for, with its own requirements for emigration, so there needs to be a match between the South African’s skills and circumstances and the country he or she has selected.”

Watters advised people to do some serious homework before taking the plunge, warning that emigration was expensive and stressful. “The grass is not always greener somewhere else.”

But he said increasingly people were looking at the option of securing a “safety net” instead by procuring second passports.

“It still requires a lot of money which has to be invested in the other country - rarely less than $400 000 (R4.8 million). But some of these schemes don’t have a requirement that you must first live there (or at all) and there can be serious tax benefits.”

Migration lawyer, Craig Smith, agreed that there had been an upsurge in emigration from South Africa, mainly as a result of political disillusionment and work opportunities.

He said South Africa had started to become less of an option for citizens where they could, through foreign spouse or otherwise, go abroad.

Three years ago PoliticsWeb, using data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, estimated that in 2010 almost 590 000 people living in 19 countries were recorded as having been born in South Africa. Among these were the United Kingdom (227 000), Australia (155 690), the US (78 616), New Zealand (41 676) and Canada (38 310).

Janine Myburgh, president of the Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said it was difficulty to get accurate figures on emigration as many people, especially young people, simply left, ostensibly on holiday and never returned.

She said the biggest problem with emigration was that it usually took the form of a brain drain with the brightest and best qualified young people looking for new opportunities in other countries.

“There certainly are indications that more people are talking and thinking about emigrating but it is very difficult to say how much of this talk will convert into actual removals.

“The Chamber believes it is extremely important to retain our skilled young people and we would support some objective research on the problem to identify possible ways to keep them here,” Myburgh added.

Econometrix chief economist, Azar Jammine, said it was not surprising that people were considering emigrating given the growing disillusionment about the way the country was being run, but there was no hard data. “I think there has been a brain drain for several years and we’ve been losing skills for some time.”

Jammine said more and more whites perceived that they were being discriminated against because of things like BEE and affirmative action.

“The general feeling is that government regards business as the enemy so there is this resentment.”

Dominyc Taylor-Pollitt, a consultant with Animal Travel Services, said they had noticed a big spike in requests to transport pets abroad.

South Africans cite a number of reasons for wanting to emigrate. These include the high crime rate, government corruption, affirmative action and, more recently, load shedding. Most people who do go are highly skilled like Idette and Hanfred Rauch, who have masters degrees.

The couple, currently staying in Kalk Bay, have lived and worked in Dublin, Seoul and in Canada where they plan to move.

They told us their story.

Idette worked for a South African university on a full-time contract but after six years it wasn’t renewed. The dean told her the decision was one of equity. She was offered part-time hours but would have had to take a substantial salary cut. So she resigned.

“My husband and I both work in the arts and I had to mostly take on jobs in the education sector to make ends meet but soon grew disillusioned with the limiting options.

“South Africa, in my view, has and is still growing into a wonderful Afro-centric country. Our problems are much the same as any other country. The US is dealing with serious crime problems at the moment, South Korea and neighbouring countries are also dealing with energy crises. We are not alone in our fight against crime and the challenge that our energy crisis brings us. It is the way, however, that government and, more importantly perhaps, society respond to these and deal with it.

“South Africans make the best of what they are dealt with. But by making light of load shedding on Facebook and by solving the problem with clever short-term solutions we might be looking out for ourselves in the short-term.

“With regards to crime, we are cleverly and also out of necessity starting neighbourhood watches of professional standards (something we should get recognition for).

“But sleeping with a gun under our pillows should raise an eyebrow or beg the question ‘why should it be necessary at all’?”

Idette said there is a lot she will miss, including the country’s warmth and friendliness and “remarkable problem solving and thinking on its feet attitude”.

“But I want my child to be able to earn in a currency that would allow her to be comfortable and offer her the option of working for more.”

Hanfred grew up in KwaZulu-Natal and spent two gap years in London before returning to study film in Pretoria.

“I lived in Pretoria for nine years, working mostly in Johannesburg. In that time, I became more and more aware of the things that were slowly slipping away - infrastructure, like electricity. I was once hospitalised for drinking tap water that had been overdosed with chemicals, and how things were getting more expensive, but salaries were not increasing. But these things are nothing new and they were not what informed my personal decision to emigrate.

“As someone who chose to tell stories for a living, be they corporate narratives or screenplays, I felt as though I had no voice.”

They say leaving South Africa was not a political decision.

“We have always wanted to live abroad and experience a different life. We were, of course, dissatisfied with the level to which crime affected us, our work prospects dwindled considerably at the time, and we were sceptical as to what kind of future our children might have.”

helen.bamford @inl.co.za

Cape Argus

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