INFLUX CONTROL AND 'URBANISATION'
Statements by ministers since September 1984 indicate that the government may further modify aspects of influx control. In April the Minister of Co-operation and Development publicly admitted that the bantustan policy had failed to halt the movement of Africans to the cities and industrial areas. Influx control is being modified to control and stabilize the presence of a permanent and possibly growing African population outside the bantustans. The changes are said to be aimed at ensuring 'orderly urbanisation'.
Recent changes affecting influx control build on the existing policy of stabilising the position of those Africans who have acquired Section 10 rights to permanently reside and work in the areas outside the bantustans, as recommended by the Riekert Commission in 1979. In January the State President announced at the opening of the new segregated parliament that the government may provide for freehold rights for Africans qualified under the pass laws to live permanently in these areas. At present such people may purchase property only on 99 year leasehold. No details of the change in policy have been spelt out.
In September last year, the State President told the Congress of the ruling National Party that the government would scrap the Coloured Labour Preference Policy (CLPP) in the Western Cape. The policy allows Coloured work seekers preferential access over Africans to jobs in the area. The underlying reasons for the scrapping of the CLPP appear to relate to its failure either to advance the job prospects of Coloured workers significantly or to restrict the movement of new African workers into the area.
By the end of May, however, the scrapping of the CLPP had not been implemented by amendments to regulations and it was still being enforced.
In further moves affecting the position of workers qualified to remain permanently outside the bantustans, amendments to the Black (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act were introduced during the 1985 session of Parliament. They would allow workers qualifying for Section 10 rights to take up work or residence in any one of the areas falling under the control of the 14 Development Boards, subject to the availability of employment and housing. Previously these rights could only be exercised in a single Development Board area.
The change is not significant for those who already have Section 10 rights as it merely incorporates into legislation regulations promulgated in June 1980. It does however allow greater mobility for persons attempting to acquire Section 10 rights, (by working for the same employer for ten years or several employers for fifteen years). Workers will be able to make up the qualifying period in different Development Board areas. In reality, the shortage of housing defined as 'suitable accommodation' will continue to restrict the number of migrant workers able to qualify on this basis. In terms of the amendment, workers who have acquired Section 10 rights will also retain them even if they move to, or the areas in which they live are incorporated into, bantustans.
According to a statement made by the State President in May, Africans deemed to be citizens of so called 'independent' bantustans may in addition be allowed in future to retain their South African nationality. The details of the policy change still have to be spelt out. It is believed that a form of dual citizenship may be envisaged. It is unclear whether the Aliens and Immigration Laws Amendment Act passed last year will remain on the statute books. The Act stipulates that foreigners entering South Africa require permits to be able to work in South Africa and provides for the prosecution of employers who take on aliens without permits. Illegal aliens can be deported by passport officials, police and agents of the Development Boards without reference to the courts. The legislation closely corresponds to the old influx controls and it is widely feared that the Act is aimed at further restricting the movement of those declared by the regime to be 'citizens' of 'independent' bantustans and 'aliens' under South African law. Immigration controls were used in 1982, before the new Act existed, to remove workers originating from the Transkei bantustan from the Western Cape. No figures are available on 'deportations' under the new Act.
FUTURE POLICY
Comprehensive new legislation on influx control has yet to emerge. The Special Cabinet Committee on the constitutional future of Africans outside the bantustans is currently reviewing the subject with a view to modifications which will be assimilated into a new Black Urbanisation Act.
The guidelines will be that Africans may remain in the areas outside the bantustans if they have both a job and suitable accommodation.
While such a policy may allow for a growth of the number of people qualifying to be in the areas outside the bantustans, through a relaxation of the definitions of 'suitable' accommodation and employment (allowing both for some form of legalised squatting and informal sector activity) control will still be exercised over those who do not qualify.
At the same time the Minister has indicated that urbanisation within the metropolitan areas must be 'balanced with the government's decentralisation programmes', which are aimed at shifting economic development and African population growth away from the Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging areas, where it could constitute a political threat, to new designated growth points. These points incorporate parts of the existing bantustan areas. Housing policy is being utilised to force workers out of the existing metropolitan areas to the new decentralisation points: new housing programmes are being concentrated in these areas. For example, the new townships of Ekangala, Soshanguve and Botshabelo (all close to or inside bantustan boundaries) presently house 150,000 people but will accommodate 325,000 people when housing programmes are completed. The sale of existing housing on a leasehold basis has further reduced housing stock. Those unable to afford to purchase their homes will be forced out of the metropolitan areas.
There are also indications that labour bureaux in the bantustans are zoning local labour to the deconcentration points.
(For further information on earlier developments concerning influx control, see 'Review: Influx Control', FOCUS 51 p.11)
