Have any plans of employing a foreigner to work in your company? Things might get a little bit more complicated as from now- Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam announced on Independence Day that as from now, "only foreigners who have expertise we lack will be allowed in".
If this initially sounded like good news, especially to those who felt the country was slowly being invaded by an army of aliens, the truth is slightly more complicated.
ln fact, so much so that one wonders if the new measures are actually going to make a difference. "Of course they will make a difference, both psychologically and in practice", insists Finance minister Rama Sithanen, the father of "opening up".
Let’s go back in time. ln 2006, the Minister of Finance announced that Mauritius would henceforth open itself up to the world and welcome foreigners who wished to come and work here. Four categories of temporary residents were created: the investors, the professionals, the self-employed and the retired non-citizens.
The investors were required to have a turnover of Rs 3 million a year (obviously this would be at the end of the financial year so basically there’s not much screening that is done at the beginning). The professionals needed to find a job that would pay them a minimum of Rs 30,000 a month and the self-employed needed to set up a business that would give them a turnover in excess of Rs 600,000 a year and the retired non-citizens needed to transfer $ 40,000 during the year.
This scheme proved very popular. Some 5000 people took advantage of it, most of them French, South African and Indian nationals- a figure that’s not insignificant for a population of 1.2 million.
The problem started with the attitudes of some of the expatriates, who started forrning little clans and who refused to integrate with the rest of the native population. Business people on the other hand, started complaining that the financial requirements to qualify for a permit were too low to attract serious foreign investors, that the investors who did take ad-vantage of the scheme were small ones and most of them didn’t have a serious business plan.
The uproar eventually led the government to review these conditions. A discussion was held at cabinet level and the decision was taken to tighten things up.
These new conditions took effect immediately- as in a few weeks ago and they are now as follows- investors now need to have a turnover of Rs 4 million instead of Rs 3 million but they also need to invest an initial sum of $100,000 and to have a company. Also prospective investors need to submit a business plan to the Board of Investment (BOI).Occupational permits would then only be given to "people actively involved in the management of the company".
This tightening of conditions will make a significant difference, believes Minister of Finance Rama Sithanen, who admits there was "abuse of the conditions because maybe the conditions weren’t spelt out clearly".
Professionals on the other hand, will need to find a job that proposes to pay them at least Rs 75,000 a month, as op-posed to Rs 30,000. They also need to submit their CV as well as proof of their qualifications and professional experience to the BOI. This category was the most popular one among expatriates- 3300 people were granted occupational permits from October 2006 to July 2009. It’s not clear if the figure was inflated because the "professionals" weren’t required to submit proof of their qualifications and experience.
Foreigners who propose to come here as self-ernployed are now required to invest an initial sum of $35,000 as well as having a turnover in excess of Rs 600,000 a year. Also they can only operate in the services sector.
Retired non-citizens will be required to transfer $40,000 at the beginning of their stay and submit proof of subsequent transfers of the same sum every year. So far so good. Except that in the new conditions, the "expertise" clause is nowhere to be found. Yet, this is precisely what the Prime minister announced on TV.
Minister Sithanen seems slightly uncomfortable about the whole "expertise" thing. "How does one decide on expertise? If a person proposes to open a restaurant mat serves food no other restaurant in Mauritius serves, would you call that an expertise that we don’t have? If a foreigner makes nice curtains that we don’t have here, what do we do?" asks the minister rather pointedly.
So who will decide this? "A sub-committee of the BOl on which sits a representative of the Prime Minister’s Office and the Ministry of Labour among others", says Sithanen.
The Minister of Finance says there won’t be any obligation for prospective employers to advertise in the newspaper and then make a request for the recruitment of a foreign national if and when they haven’t been able to find a suitable local employee.
It will be left to that subcommittee to determine whether or not a person can come and work in Mauritius.
«We need to be careful not to fall into the other extreme, that is make rules so stringent that we end up closing up the country", adds Sithanen. Which brings us to the other part of the prime ministerial declaration- ’’foreigners will have to understand that we have our very own way of life and they will have to adapt to the Mauritian way of life and integrate in the community".
"Too right", comments Sithanen. How will government ever implement such a thing?
Even Rama Sithanen (who usually has an answer for everything) is not quite sure how to go about this one.
Deepa BHOOKHUN
Source : l’express Weekly du vendredi 19 mars 2010
