The expenditure is for physical fencing, efficient patrols, intelligence gathering, aerial surveillance and related infrastructure.
This expenditure is in addition to the R4 billion annual request by the Border Management Authority (BMA), headed by Dr Nakampe Michael Masiapato, to achieve full BMA operational efficiency and capacity.
Daniel du Plessis, Vice President of Milkor, a South African defence company, urged the government to use local technology such as long-range drones, AI-driven recognition, intelligence equipment and the Milkor 380 surveillance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).
At this stage, that appears to be the grandest plan to stop migrants, primarily from Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Lesotho, from entering South Africa. It is overwhelmingly agreed that illegal migration must be stamped out.
However, there is a huge argument for a solution that could achieve the same objective for R1 billion, with significant savings and rewards. The problem in Africa is that governments only consider what their technocrats present to them.
The sieve, the bottleneck, is those technocrats. Ministers and the President are not gathering ideas themselves and instead rely on recommendations from technocrats who draft the documents submitted for funding.
South Africa’s problem will not be solved by sealing its borders, and it will take more than five years from 2027 for the borders to be fully secured.
The migration issue is an echo of the urgent need for job creation. South Africa should use R200 million, a small portion of what is proposed, to begin industrialisation to achieve black participation, job creation and economic growth.
That is what South Africans want. Spending R14 billion on borders is wasteful, considering that about 72,000 people have recently left the country, according to the BMA, and they are not likely to return because they know there is nothing worth risking their lives for in South Africa.
Zimbabweans and citizens of other neighbouring countries, apart from Malawi, never wanted to be in South Africa in the first place before 2000.
From 1980, Zimbabweans who came to South Africa were mainly Ndebele, who are brethren of the Zulu, but they were very few compared with the estimated one million Zimbabweans now living in South Africa, according to various studies.
About 2,000 Zimbabwean professionals were working in South Africa to help address skills shortages in the new dispensation. There were also seasonal contract farm workers.
Then, in 2002 (Zimbabwe’s general elections) and 2004 (Zimbabwe’s presidential elections), South Africa was the only country to legitimise Zimbabwe’s elections, which most observers condemned.
South Africans have forgotten, or do not want to remember, that after 1994 the South African government contributed to the deteriorating conditions in Zimbabwe by supporting one side.
This led to thousands fleeing the resulting economic and political fallout.
In 2007, at the request of Zimbabwean civil society in South Africa, President Mbeki provided an office where Zimbabwean issues could be discussed away from politics.
A research questionnaire involving 4,995 Zimbabweans, produced in 2008 and later extrapolated into an abstract in 2012 (Makina 2012), showed that Zimbabweans wanted to return home but sought assistance in two key areas.
The first request was for documentation to keep them legally resident.
This was done in 2010. The second request was funding to enable them to start their own businesses in South Africa before eventually returning to Zimbabwe, thereby encouraging others to return and discouraging further migration.
In the meantime, Zimbabweans and South Africans worked together from 2008 to 2012 to develop a model for mass industrialisation. During these meetings, the Zimbabweans requested R50 million to begin the process.
Nothing happened, and the Presidents never saw the proposal because technocrats removed it from consideration in favour of their Eurocentric ideas, while politicians remained unaware.
Had South Africa provided the R50 million, Zimbabweans would not have become such a significant issue in South Africa.
Looking at that programme today, the funding required would be R1 billion for all the countries involved. South Africa would require R200 million to begin its own industrialisation on the same model, Zimbabwe R200 million, Lesotho R200 million, Mozambique R200 million and Malawi R200 million, making a total of R1 billion.
If South Africa were to reach agreement with the other African countries involved to implement this arrangement, within a year there would be no migrants coming to South Africa, while South Africans would simultaneously begin creating employment for themselves.
The industrialisation programme was developed from 2012 and has been refined over the years. It exists, but the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC) Directors-General ignore it because they only want foreign and white investors.
In a last-ditch effort, the matter is now before the courts in an attempt to persuade the executive to listen to alternative voices rather than relying solely on their hoodwinked Directors-General and permanent secretaries.
