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World Cup opportunity for jobless Zimbabweans
African Business
October 2007

The 2010 World Cup windfall opportunities extend further than South Africa's borders and are allowing the country's rapidly mounting skills shortage to mop up the thousands of qualified people out of work in neighbouring Zimbabwe.

Skilled construction workers are trekking in droves to South Africa to join the construction boom triggered by preparations for the Cup. With three years to go before the 2010 kick-off, Zimbabwean architects, surveyors, engineers and artisans are leaving the country for South Africa where a scarcity of expertise in the building trade is driving up wages. According to Zimbabwe government engineer Tafadzwa Huni, 30 of his colleagues in state employment have left for South Africa since January. He will join the exodus later this year.

"The economic situation in Zimbabwe and the boom opportunities offered by the hosting of the World Cup has forced me to go," says Huni.

Managing Director of Harare-based Ncube Burrow consulting engineers, Daniel Ncube, says the exodus is squeezing local companies.

"Things are not looking good. You train an engineer for two years and the next thing he is gone. South African firms are taking almost everyone: artisans, engineers, architects and even bricklayers."

Apart from the stadiums and the R6bn they will consume in their construction, a vastly upgraded transport system costing another R9bn is being installed. The transport network is also under deadline pressure and desperate for skills resources.

South Africa's department of home affairs has relaxed entry procedures and red tape, and cut down on the time required to qualify building trade personnel for work and residence permits. Human resources companies and employment agencies are advertising worldwide, including in Zimbabwe and other mainly SADC countries, for building trade skills causing concern in the development community of a brain drain of construction talent.

Artisan salaries on offer in the South African building trade range up to $4,000 per month "negotiable". For Zimbabwean personnel, such salaries are irresistible.

Says Martin Manhuwqa, president of the Zimbabwe Institute for Engineers: "At the rate at which people are going to South Africa, we might end up not having any qualified people in the country."

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