Three African Countries, Three Very Different Work Permits
What the foreign work permit process can tell you about a country
Having recently completed the work permit process in Africa for the third time, I found myself reflecting on and comparing these three experiences. My main take-away: the work permit experience for foreign workers can say a lot about a country’s institutional priorities and broader business culture.
As a note, I do feel very privileged as an American to have a passport and the resources to pursue work in countries abroad with relative ease. As one of my stories below will go into, spending time building a business from scratch while waking up paranoid each day that an immigration officer will bring that dream crashing down has given me a glimpse of what it might be like for immigrants in the US who fear being deported every day. Though if I were to have been kicked out in my own situation, I would still have a comfortable landing spot to return to, which many immigrants sadly do not.
Greenlight in Gabon
This was the easiest. The work visa was actually obtained on arrival and the application paperwork completely handled by the company’s capable admin team.
I was beginning a 1-year fellowship working with one of the largest international companies there, which was in the midst of a major billion-dollar public-private partnership to diversify the country’s oil-dependent economy: develop a urea fertilizer production plant, a diversified special economic zone, and two hundred-thousand-acre palm oil plantations, all built-from-scratch “greenfield” projects. I arrived with four other new American fellows to help develop and refine various corporate social responsibility projects and strategies related to these initiatives.
Upon arrival at the airport, we were picked up in company branded vehicles and whisked away to our company-run guesthouses. Throughout my year there, these same vehicles would almost always get waved through various police checkpoints without questions as we traveled the country visiting company project sites. Only when I took a private taxi while running errands or meeting a friend in town, did I get questioned by police at checkpoints. I’d just need to show them my passport, mention the company I was working for, and we’d be on our way.
My permit technically expired whenever I departed the country, which usually would be very concerning and annoying in cases where there was an application process, but in this case it didn’t really matter. When I traveled twice during the 1-year placement, I was just as easily granted new free permits upon arrival during those subsequent returns, as long as I had a cover letter from the company.
As the fellowship year concluded and I needed to say farewell to the local friends and workmates I had made in Libreville, a part of me flirted with the idea of staying longer and pursuing other work there. I realized that the ease of the immigration process was a direct result of my work with the company. I ultimately felt I didn’t want to explore working with the company further, even though I didn’t have another opportunity lined up yet. Without any affiliation with the company, I would essentially no longer be welcome in the country unless I tried to seek out another employer.
My experience in Gabon showed me that in countries where governments are keen to pursue focused economic agendas and partner with key private sector players, facilitating almost-no-questions-asked work permit schemes becomes a no-brainer and puts at ease the expats brought in by large influential companies to get the job done well — but usually at the price of the foreigners having any flexibility to pursue other projects during or after their stint with their original international employer.
Malawi Moves Slow
This was hardest one. I eventually got a full work permit, and even renewed it once, but not without years of struggle.
I was there as a representative expanding a social enterprise, which meant registering a new entity in the country and essentially requesting a work permit for myself. I’ve noticed this chicken-and-egg conundrum often confuses bureaucrats who aren’t used to seeing foreigners starting their own enterprises in their country.
Initially, I turned in my application at the immigration office on my own. As the immigration officer at the desk perused my paper application, she wryly smiled saying to my surprise that she had heard about the company (which was not well known there at that time). She explained that her brother had worked there. This just happened to be the guy I had needed to fire several weeks prior due to being caught repeatedly neglecting his responsibilities and not reporting having damaged a company-rented vehicle. Needless to say, I was quite worried that she would delay or meddle with my application, but couldn’t retract my application at that point.
I continued to go about my work, arranging for travel outside of Malawi at least every 3 months so that I could operate under the gray area of temporary visitor permits. I was focused on building up country operations from scratch for the first time. An entire year went by of doing border jumps until one day, after growing my team from 0 to around 75 staff, I received a letter (a single sheet of paper folded onto itself and stapled, no less) saying that my application had been denied and that I must “wrap up my affairs and leave the country as soon as possible.” I immediately suspected the immigration officer had a hand in it, but was obviously never able to confirm this.
What followed was another stressful year of hiring a local law firm to appeal the rejection, meanwhile continuing to grow my team to over 150 staff, always at the risk of immigration officials coming to our office and arresting me (though I had the local lawyer available on call). Finally, I was called in and given a two-year permit stamp, which was back-dated by 6 months so that I would only have 18 months remaining of eligibility before a renewal application would be needed. After being in the country for more than two years under uncertain status, I now felt somewhat more comfortable about my stay in Malawi and went on to make certain decisions about housing and relationships. As much as the initial years had been a sprint to set up operations with an urgency to find product-market fit, I also knew that it would be a marathon to build a sustainable new business model serving over a million smallholder farmers in the country, requiring patience and a sense of long-term commitment from me if I were to continue to play my part.
I would go on to successfully renew the permit again, extending its validity for another 2 years, but would continually run into immigration challenges as I grew the Malawi branch to over 250 staff, including 10 other expatriate staff. For the international organization I had been working for, this represented a real constraint to scaling operations across this country, especially compared with some of its expansion options in other countries where things were usually more clear and optimistic.
During my time there, I witnessed how work permits also touched the nerves of local staff and politicians about the role of foreigners in their country. Nationalist overtones (as they exist in every country) persists, especially given the context of colonialism, which results in a general attitude that bringing in foreign experts and business people should only be temporary in nature. Except for multi-generational expats who are already long settled, new expats are expected to train understudies for only 2–6 years and then go on to leave, rather than settle permanently, to allow well-educated nationals to move up in these companies and organizations and not be led by people from the outside. On several occasions, my foreign colleagues and I were asked directly by local team members when we’d finally be leaving so they could take over things themselves.
This is a flawed strategy for any country that wants to build globally (or at least regionally) competitive companies and tackle some of the world’s toughest challenges (Malawi has previously been ranked the poorest country in the world). A country should facilitate the creation of the best and most diverse teams to give them the time and space to innovate and grow. Given the very nature of the global workforce, aiming for 100% national-composed teams just doesn’t make sense. Allowing for 3-year-expat-SWAT-teams isn’t a substitute.
It’s important to acknowledge that I was applying for a work permit here under a non-profit entity. To its credit, the Malawi Investment and Trade Centre provides separate fast-track support for investors bringing in for-profit businesses. But given the importance of the social sector and the reality that many social enterprises are registered as non-profits, further consideration should be given to expanding coverage of the fast-track permit process to social enterprises.
Looking back, my sense it that a short-term-foreign-workers-only mindset and a corruptible, poorly-executed permit process (along with the many horror stories it causes) ultimately scares away individuals and companies looking to launch deep and innovative projects and investments.
Mauritius Means Business
This was the most by-the-book process, and one reason why I recently moved there to launch my first start-up.
For context, any registered “Global Business Company” in Mauritius must be in-part administered by a local management company, for which there is a select list of accredited companies. (Perhaps this is a local-job-creation tactic that other countries could consider.) I selected a firm from several different leads suggested by other pan-African entrepreneurs I asked with experience with Mauritius. The whole process, including both a business registration and work permit, took about 3 months from submitting all of my initial application materials to them. I had to first e-apply and pay online with a credit card, then appear in person at a 30-minute appointment to display some of the original documents to complete the process, in which they approved and completed the process there and then. Don’t get me wrong, the officers there were very competent, going through each document in the application carefully and asking for clarifications where needed, leaving me slightly on edge throughout the short process. Afterwards, I realized I shouldn’t have worried — since I had prepared everything, they weren’t going to sabotage me. I even got an automated email confirmation within minutes of the appointment being over, giving me access to a digital version of the permit should I lose the paper copy I just received. Smiling at my smartphone as I walked out of the government building, I was amped to continue working on my company for the next three years (work permit length, with extensions allowed as long as you are still working), and not let any immigration issues cloud my business judgement or day-to-day personal sustainability.
Last year, I was ready to invest my own savings and launch my own business. I picked Mauritius as the destination because it was ranked #1 overall in Africa for ease of doing business, and so far it hasn’t disappointed. Of every country in Africa I’ve spent considerable time, the Mauritius business climate seems to have the most understanding of, awareness of and encouragement for the notion that as a foreigner I wanted the flexibility to potentially: 1) start my own company without necessarily needing local co-founders, 2) call myself CEO, 3) bring in investment capital to launch, 4) get started quickly, and 5) one day potentially repatriate my earnings. Note that in many cases, I would actually strongly recommend a local co-founder, but in my current case I am building a pan-African online business and using a Board of Advisors consisting of several individuals from across the continent.
My take-away so far is that Mauritius is serious about attracting and retaining outside talent and investment. As an island nation that has long been involved with international trade and multinationalism, this is not a surprise. The government seems to generally want certain types of reputable and high-potential businesses to base themselves there in order to build their tax base and improve their credibility as a regional hub — all without overburdening its local resources and systems with too much immigration. They of course don’t want anyone ripping them off or tarnishing their name, so vigilant screening systems and occasional policy revisions are needed.
Solid, focused, well-executed policy can lead to attracting the right people who are confident they’ll get a fair shake. Ultimately it’s not easy to get immigration policy right, but I hope that each country can consider developing something along the lines of an innovator visa or entrepreneur visa to encourage cross-border innovation and collaboration.
