Johannesburg – Trade union federation Cosatu has warned against what it calls the “balkanisation” of certain towns by foreign nationals, saying it is a ticking bomb that undermines South Africa’s nation-building project.
Addressing a meeting of shop stewards in Durban, Cosatu general secretary Bheki Ntshalintshali said it was undesirable that there were now areas where foreigners had grouped themselves, turning those areas into no-go zones for native South Africans.
“There are areas now comrades where if you go to, it feels like you’re in another country, this is very worrying,” he said in his address to the shop steward council last week.
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Giving insight on the basis of their argument to Sunday World, Cosatu spokesperson Sizwe Pamla pulled no punches, saying the private sector was exacerbating the immigration crisis in the country.
He said the matter was currently the subject of robust internal discussion within the federation. “For now, it’s an internal matter that we are putting together and consolidating.
Our view is that there is a vacuum in the space on how to deal with an immigration crisis, said Pamla.
“For instance, laws of the country are specific and clear that only scarce skills should be sought outside our borders.
But we have seen a deliberate recruitment of foreign nationals by the private sector, especially in the services industries such as hotels and the security sector.”
Pamla added that there were companies whose entire workforce was dominated by a certain group of foreigners, saying this was often the cause of violence between locals and their foreign counterparts.
“The private sector encourages foreign nationals to recruit others so that they can pay below the minimum wage.
“Lately, we have seen a new trend in the construction industry, which is now dominated by the Chinese. They also bring their own workers. These are real problems that need to be sorted,” he said.
Pamla added that human trafficking was also on the rise because of the glaring failures to manage immigration.
“We cannot allow a situation in which foreign nationals are grouping themselves according to which country they come from.
The balkanisation and bantustanisation of communities reengineered by the foreign nationals must be dismantled. We cannot have Somali or Nigerian no-go zones in SA.”
However, Steven Mmindje Kabakilwa, the director of the African Solidarity Campaign, a civil society organisation promoting the welfare of foreign nationals, said immigrants were a permanent feature for South Africa and must be embraced by communities.
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