Pete’s blog

Going to start off with a good old rant.

You might have heard stuff in the news lately about immigration and protests and America’s new policy with illegal immigrants and with Europe’s complaints about immigrants. In one of those news bulletins the comment was made that America is not interested in unskilled migrant labour and is only trying to attract skilled labour. A completely fair and mundane comment, it makes perfect sense … or does it? Is it not actually a reflection of everything that people hate about globalisation, about America? Is it not one of the fundamental reasons why Africa is so poor?

Let me explain. A skilled worker is one of the most valuable members of any society and represents a significant investment of time, money and training. A skilled worker can create on average 10 jobs for unskilled labourers (so I have heard). Only fair that countries would want to attract them. But where are they attracting them from? Someone told me that 20 000 skilled people left Africa last year. Yeah, right. Africans are all stupid and unskilled. Actually strangely enough, poverty is one of the biggest catalysts for people to study. For a poor family, getting a child through school and university is seen as one of the best ways out of poverty. In South Africa, most of the top African intelligentsia come from the Eastern Cape, the poorest province in South Africa. A Ugandan guy I worked with at Standard Bank says that Uganda is full of accountants. So a lucky few get educated, but what do they have to stay for? Why stay in Africa when you can earn so much more overseas and live a far better lifestyle? So the mechanics of the situation are that Africa trains people, who then have no reason to stay, and go and work overseas. I am sure this is all common knowledge at this point. But now think about this more closely. How much does it cost to educate one person? Yeah, yeah, they pay school fees and university fees. But that is not the real cost. Most schooling is HIGHLY subsidised. Governments are always told: put more money in education, it will help your country grow in the future. A three year degree at Wits will cost the student about R40 000. The true cost is probably 10 times that. I know that a three year degree at Oxford for a foreign student (where they make you pay the full cost) will cost about R1 million. That is just the tertiary education portion, what about the 12 years of primary and high school before that? Even if we take the very low amount of R1 million per person, that means at least R20 billion was lost by Africa last year. That is R20 billion that was spent by Africa on its future that will now not be part of Africa’s future, but America’s future. $3 billion a year. And that is just the direct cost. If you estimate that each person would have had an income of R100 000 a year (another very low estimate), that is R2 billion a year in lost GDP. If you include the 10 unskilled workers that each person would have employed, it is probably another R2 billion a year. $3.5 billion a year in total. I am sure you have got the point now, each skilled person represents a massive loss to the country losing them and a massive gain to the country gaining them. Immigration of skilled labour where the flows in either direction are fairly equal or where there is a genuine surplus in a country make sense, but when that flow is in one direction it can be disastrous.

So taking this from America’s point of view, they can basically pick and chose who they want from Africa’s talent pool, not have to pay a cent for their education and training, and have no trouble getting them to immigrate. What a great system. Africa, why are you so poor and stupid?

Don’t ask me what the solution to this problem is, because I am still working on it (and so is the African Union). How do you get the African diaspora to return to Africa? Did you know that the African-American community is the most educated ethnic group in America (heard that from a former US ambassador)? What if all these people came back and invested in Africa? The whole situation is a self-perpetuating machine that only needs to be reversed for a second for it to break apart. What if instead of immigrating, the people stayed behind and helped build their own country? How long would it take before their country was so rich that there would be no need to leave? Yeah, yeah, everyone knows that you can’t make a country rich overnight… or can you? They rebuilt Germany and Japan after the Second World War pretty quickly. Roosevelt got America out of the Great Depression in a decade (30% unemployment to 0% unemployment. 10% unemployment before the war). It can and has been done. And India is doing it right as we speak. All the Indians that went to America and got rich in the IT boom, are now returning in droves to India. India has reversed their brain drain.

Otherwise it would be great if the developed countries would stop trying to skim the cream of the rest of the world. I would like to see America paying $1 million for every immigrant that they take. Or even better, if for every skilled worker that they took, they took 20 unskilled workers. Or maybe a moratorium on permanent immigrations, only 5 years maximum allowed – go overseas, work a bit, get cash and experience, bring it home and make it better…

I can only dream. There is one thing that can and should be done, Africa should do its best not to lose its ties with the people that have left. Even though they work in another country, they can still be a powerful force for Africa’s renewal. A vast lobby group for Africa’s interests and a pool of capital to be invested in Africa.

Apologies to all you expatriates out there… or not… Come back home! Stop wasting your time on places that don’t need your help! {grin}