Trevor Manuel, South Africa's long-serving Minister of Finance, has had a busy time of it. When he hasn't been demanding reform at the IMF, he has been lecturing the US and Western Europe on their theft of valuable skilled people from our nation.
Let's lay to rest this claim that skills are being plundered from South Africa.
Say little Johnny or Sarah comes running home and says, "I'm leaving Pofadder for Jo'burg. I can earn twice as much and the opportunities are more exciting." Is Jo'burg "stealing" skills from Pofadder?
There are plenty of small South African towns that are dying as young, ambitious people leave to seek their fortunes elsewhere. Should their municipal councils demand that Jo'burg refuse to take these migrants in and return them at once?
And where does the free choice of the individual come in to this? Should we place the "needs" of a nation over our own desires and ambitions?
The concept of a nation is rather tenuous. Now, as when we have recently won a major sporting event, the populace of our country bask in reflected glory and draw closer in a sense of nationhood. The glow fades, daily events intrude, and we draw apart again.
A nation is simply a reflection of the collective will and interests of the people who happen to be living there. Skills are not products in the same way that pocket calculators are products.
Pocket calculators can travel the world easily and, short of taxation at the border, are free to arrive and go as they please. People are not.
When people choose to migrate to look for work and opportunities they do so out of respect for their own abilities, and in the hopes of securing a future for themselves and their families. Whether the person is a migrant worker moving from the rural Eastern Cape to Gauteng to work on a mine; or a doctor going to the UK to get a job in a private clinic.
They are moving in order to best fulfil their ambition. When you sell a pocket calculator you exchange it for the highest cash offer you can get. If you can get a better offer for it by moving it to another place then you might do so. A person's skills are their own to trade for the best value they can get.
Only a fool offers their best in exchange for the least they can get. By definition, skilled people are the least foolish amongst us.
Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, our health minister, speaking about the profit motive of private health services, declared recently, "It has been recognised internationally as unsustainable, unaffordable and, frankly, not ethically justifiable."
Despite this loathing of profits and distaste for the private sector, when it was time for the replacement of her own ailing liver, she checked herself into a private clinic and abandoned state hospitals. If even someone like the health minister can calculate the odds of where her best interests will be served, what do you think the most skilled and able amongst us are likely to do?
And it isn't all one way. The World Bank estimates that remittances – cash sent home by migrants – is worth $ 250 billion a year. Lesotho, which can justly claim that South Africa "steals" all their talent, receives 26% of their GDP from money sent home.
Do you think that the nation of Lesotho would benefit if South African mines sent the Basotho home? How about Zimbabwe if the 3 million of their citizens in the diaspora were sent back?
Minister Manuel, you have things entirely the wrong way round. A nation is a product and it must be sold. A nation must be loyal to its people; not the other way round.
If South Africa wants investment then it must act to create a favourable environment for those investors. Whether they are foreigners whom you wish to attract to build factories; or locals who you wish to draw home.
To learn more about this author, visit Gavin Chait's Website.
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