Thokozile Mnguni
Action SA leader Herman Mashaba has criticised President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Sunday address.
He said the President repackaged what he described as the same failed and tired talking points that have characterised the African National Congress’s decades long failure to secure South Africa’s borders and effectively address illegal immigration.
Mashaba said South Africans deserve answers to questions about what, if anything, is genuinely different in the measures announced.
“Instead, the President avoided scrutiny and offered little more than a scripted repetition of the same failed policies that have done nothing to address the crisis,” he said.
He further said that while the Border Management Authority remains underfunded, under equipped and under resourced, any commitment by the President to ramp up enforcement is dead on arrival.
“It increasingly appears that the government is acting only in response to manufactured outrage from foreign governments that are unwilling to confront the consequences of their own failures,” he added.
Mashaba further said that rather than acknowledging the immense and real social and economic burden that unchecked illegal immigration places on South Africa, these governments have chosen to grandstand, deflect responsibility and deliberately misrepresent the legitimate calls of South Africans for urgent and meaningful immigration reform.
Meanwhile, the Congress of South African Trade Unions has welcomed the address, saying Ramaphosa’s remarks confirmed that concerns raised through protests have been heard.
Spokesperson for COSATU Zanele Sabela said, “We fully agree with President Ramaphosa, that intimidation, violence, victimisation and xenophobia against foreign nationals in the country legally or illegally, is not the answer to these ills, and will therefore not be tolerated” said Sabela.
“The answer must be rapid economic growth, increased investment, infrastructure development, industrialisation and job creation,” she said.
She further said COSATU supports the President in his affirmation that only authorised government officials should act against violations of the country’s laws including violations of immigration laws, adding that anyone taking the law into their own hands must be brought to book.