Professional Hunter Work

[shakari]

Steve were you able to sell your property and personal items off or were they just taken?

We got screwed over for abou 27.5% of our money and that despite the fact the banking laws only apply to residents and we were leaving because they refused to grant us residency......... Quite HTF they worked that out I don't know but nevertheless it cost us a shed load of money.

Still....... no one ever said life and especially living in Africa was easy!

 

[enysse]

Sorry to hear, that is quite sad. I hope you and Susan can make the best of it, the rest of your days on Earth.

I'm moving into the medical field and wish people understood how hard it is to rise in the medical field. You have to be smart, have experience, a good education and be a hard worker!

 

[BRICKBURN]

............. the last words a Home Affairs employee said to me were "It's quite simple Mr Robinson. We don't want whites in our country and we want while immigrants even less"
........

It is sad when some bureaucrats/politicians just don't understand at minimum and are short sighted and ignorant to the effects of policy and racism.

Oh well, you are out. Safe and sound happy up in Portugal.

I know you are not suggesting anyone lied. That is not your demeanour, nor has it ever been historically.

..........and of course back to the question
an Ad in the PHASA magazine is a creative idea.
It certainly goes to the proper audience.

 

[shakari]

Sorry to hear, that is quite sad. I hope you and Susan can make the best of it, the rest of your days on Earth.

I'm moving into the medical field and wish people understood how hard it is to rise in the medical field. You have to be smart, have experience, a good education and be a hard worker!

We're fine thanks buddy. The money was a loss but it wasn't a disaster and it just meant we had to be a little more careful in what we bought here & fortunately we were always cautious not to bring more money into Africa than we needed to.

Brickburn,

They always know they can call on the do-gooders in the west to give them as much foreign aid as they need and of course, the Africans have never been particularly great at planning ahead huh!

More generally: Although we miss Africa and our friends there, we love it here and wouldn't go back.

 

[ChrisT]

Steve were you able to sell your property and personal items off or were they just taken?

Eric,

Nobody that I know of who legally owned property has had his/her property taken from him/her in South Africa to date. And that's referring to "taking by the Government" - not common thieves which happens everywhere in the World...

Best,

 

[shakari]

Chris

I'm certainly not aware of anyone having property confiscated so far but the various people who had to leave RSA because of the Immigration Act amendments all got hit the same way we were. - That is we were treated as residents when it came to moving our money overseas but were leaving RSA because we weren't residents and had been refused residency.

That said, as much as I hate the thought, I'll bet a pound to a pinch of the brown stuff that Malema will be President within 3 terms and if that happens then the confiscations, especially land confiscations will start before you can say 'mad bustard Malema'

 

[BRICKBURN]

..
Brickburn,

They always know they can call on the do-gooders in the west to give them as much foreign aid as they need and of course, the Africans have never been particularly great at planning ahead huh!
.........

The latest news from the UK is that they have stopped or reduced foreign aid to RSA by a significant amount.

 

[shakari]

The news I saw said they'd stopped UKP19M of foreign aid which interestingly and according to some reports is a similar figure to the amount Zuma has spent on his new palace. LOL!

 

[ChrisT]

Steve,

I have similar concerns as you as far as some of our politicians are concerned... Let's hope sanity prevails as far as that is concerned but let's also not forget that SA is a stable and safe travel destination...

I cannot comment on the effect that the Immigration Act has on people as a whole save to say that my wife is an "Immigrant" and we just submitted her application for permanent residency a couple of weeks ago without a problem (so far). And to be honest we've had no issues during the 5 years+ she has been living in our country. We've had to renew her visa every 2 years which in spite of the fact that idiots nowadays seem to be employed by Home Afairs was relatively non-problematic.

Quite frankly; the biggest issue we've had most of the time was not the Immigration Act but rather those who are employed to enforce it.

As a matter of interest; what were he official reasons why you were "kicked out"? Surely not because you were "White immigrants"?

 

[spike.t]

The latest news from the UK is that they have stopped or reduced foreign aid to RSA by a significant amount.

stops in 2015 and this has angered some of the "politicians" in south africa..... shame

 

[shakari]

Chris

I agree that RSA is a relatively safe holiday destination and even safer in the bush etc for sure. Admittedly the big towns can be dangerous to the unwary but the same can be said if pretty much any big town in the world.

I'm sure you're wife won't have any major problems because she has an RSA resident as a husband and if I remember correctly, has a couple of kids? but that said, I'm sure you've seen the signs in the HA office that says marriage is no longer a guarantee of PR being granted.

The reasons are a bit complicated but in short, the new amendments mean there are a number of stipulated categories and all applicants must fit into one of those categories. Each category has set criteria criteria you must meet and ALL applications are then fed into a computer programme. If you don't meet the criteria, they refuse PR.

As it happened, we were between categories. We had a private income but not enough guaranteed for retirement. We had a business that employed people but some were indirectly employed OR were not employed in the hunting business.

We could prove we provided employment for close to 100 people by way of taxidermy etc but they were also employed by someone else.

And so it went on........ we came close to fitting several categories but didn't fit comfortably into any.

We even had a VERY important ANC member who may well become President one day on our side and he might have been able to pull strings for us once our application was in place but for that to happen, the lady in the HA office has to accept our application in the first place and whilst someone like him can talk to a Minister, he can't talk to an Afrikaans lady in HA who is shite scared for her job and he can't speak to her computer that she has to use to accept or reject our application.

We could have challenged them in court as the whole thing was in contravention of the Constitution but that would have cost a fortune and there's no guarantee of success when suing an African Govt in an African court so we decided it wasn't worth the risk and the worry and would rather voertsak and go somewhere we had a RIGHT to reside....... and as it turned out, it was a bloody good decision.

 

[shakari]

Oh & I forgot to mention I also had a good case for contributing to the local community & amongst other things used to write a regular weekly column on classic cars & bikes for the largest local paper in RSA.

It isn't about what you contribute or how much you have or do........ It's about skin colour and nothing else.

South Africa is more racist now than it's ever been and getting more so by the day.

The good news is the crime rate here is virtually zero. I don't have to live behind barbed wire, laser beams or use security guards & in fact, hardly even ever lock my workshop or cars etc.