Most foreign national making positive contribution to SA – Malusi Gigaba

Immigrants welcome to South Africa
We have also heard the complaints of our people and will pay attention to them

It is with extreme regret that we join the President of South Africa, as well as the rest of our country, in condemning the violent attacks on foreign nationals in our country and express our sincere regrets to fellow African and Pakistani nationals in South Africa who have been victims of these brutal acts of violence against foreign nationals by perpetrators.

From the outset, we would like to make a strong statement that the majority of foreign nationals in South Africa make very positive contributions to our society and economy.

First, immigrants contribute to the economic development of our country by investing in the economy, by providing vital skills including our health facilities, by teaching our children and youth in schools and universities and thus transferring their knowledge and skills to them.

Accordingly, these people pay taxes which contribute to expanding the national treasury, while many still have to send money back to their families in their countries of origin and still maintain themselves and their livelihoods in South Africa.

Furthermore, many citizens of our neighboring countries travel to South Africa daily, weekly or monthly to buy their groceries or to buy goods from our retail outlets to sell in their own country, pay toll fees on our roads and thus contribute to revenue generation which is very important for increased social as well as economic expenditure to benefit the people of South Africa.

As a result, the allegation that not all foreign nationals in South Africa pay tax is as absurd as the notion that all South Africans pay tax. We have not seen mobs of armed gangs chasing many tax evading South Africans through the streets.

Secondly, by entering our country through our designated ports of entry as regular migrants, and complying with both our immigration and other laws, most foreign nationals contribute to enhancing South Africa's national security and ensuring that we can manage visitors in our midst, while protecting both these visitors as well as South Africans in our country.

Recently, we have enhanced our laws and regulations to more effectively protect South Africa by managing and reducing the risks to our country arising from the processes and phenomenon of international migration.

Third, immigrants to our country contribute to nation-building and enhance our social cohesion by bringing greater diversity to our country and creating greater understanding of the diverse nature of not only Africans in Africa but the people of the world.

With new waves of immigrants to South Africa in recent years, we have become a more cosmopolitan country and our sense of who we are as a nation has deepened based on the new complex dynamics that have enriched our country.

Today, for example, you have new entrants to the South African nation who are not strictly part of the African majority, but who are part of both the African majority and the immigrant minority at the same time; Whose home languages ​​are none of the ones we have known over the centuries since our nation was formed.

Fourth, immigrants have integrated South Africa into the global community and African immigrants in particular have made South Africa the integral part of the African continent that we deserve.

Every country on the continent can find its citizens on our shores; And, in some cases, we now have people of South African descent in our fellow African countries.

We, as a people, are better and more human than ever because of these fellow Africans and people elsewhere in the world who have willingly, and mostly in routine ways, chosen to live among us and make South Africa their permanent home.

The children of these people do not know the country of origin of their parents and will be related to them only as Indians and white South Africans are related to India or Europe – the countries of their ancestors' ancestry; But their home now and in the future is South Africa.

Accordingly, we must be clear that immigrants are welcome in South Africa.

So what do we hold responsible for the recent barbaric attacks on African immigrants in particular?

If it was a concern about shops owned by foreign nationals, why were humans attacked and brutally uprooted from their homes in other than brutal ways?

Certainly, we need to combat with impunity the negative ideas propagated in our public discourse, which criminal gangs today use to commit crimes ostensibly against South Africa and in the name of South Africa.

The irrefutable fact is that it is wrong and false to claim that,

• All immigrants to South Africa are undocumented and therefore so-called “illegals”,
• All undocumented immigrants are African and all African immigrants are undocumented and therefore so-called “illegals.”
• All immigrants do not pay taxes and therefore they are ruining the South African economy, and
• All African immigrants commit crime in South Africa.

The number of African tourists to South Africa has increased significantly, arriving through OR Tambo International Airport and our land ports of entry.

The cities of Nkomazi, Musina, Ficksburg and even Nelspruit, Polokwane and Mangaung benefit greatly from the revenue generated from our neighbours.

The majority of immigrants to our country, particularly African immigrants who are the subject of our attention at present, enter South Africa as regular immigrants with documents and therefore enter this country legally.

While some people have entered the country irregularly, without documents and illegally, the Home Office's immigration services are deporting them at a cost of millions of rands per year.

As we speak, following the transfer of the Border Control Coordinating Committee (BCOCC) from the South African Revenue Service (SARS) to the Department of Home Affairs, plans are underway to establish a Border Management Agency (BMA) that will guard and protect our country's land, sea and air borders, working in partnership with other state agencies.

Towards this effect, the BMA legislation will be presented to the National Assembly for deliberations through the relevant Portfolio Committee and ultimately for adoption by the House.

Although the BMA should not be seen as a panacea towards curing the ills of our border line, its special capability will go a long way towards building credibility for our border management mechanism.

Building on the BMA establishment, the Department will soon launch a new campaign to enhance border management which will focus on an integrated approach under the BCOCC and BMA Steering Committee.

Also, in addition to the rules announced in May last year, the Home Office is working hard towards a new International Migration White Paper to transform the 1999 policy framework, which will introduce new migration management approaches in a new framework to enhance our international migration management.

Among other things, the new policy framework will be more clear

• How to manage economic migration to South Africa,
• How to resolve the question of regulation of shops owned by foreign nationals, and
• How to ensure that foreign nationals whose visas entitle them to work in South Africa are not employed outside the provisions of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act so that their employment does not lower wages and conditions of employment, which often disadvantages South Africans.

Additionally, the Home Department will spend R118m over the next three years to recruit inspectors to boost its inspection capacity to detect and prosecute companies that employ undocumented migrants or those without work visas.

170 inspectors will be recruited in the first year, with a slight increase in the next two years.

Furthermore, the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Department of National Treasury will soon announce plans to improve the physical and system infrastructure of our ports of entry.

However, despite all this, we must reject with contempt the notion that all immigrants, especially African immigrants, are criminals, that all crime in South Africa is committed by immigrants and also that crime is only worse when committed by immigrants as if it would be better if it were committed by South African citizens.

Furthermore, given the fact that there are few foreign nationals who commit crimes in South Africa, it is not fair that we should, in response, give a street and mob justice style collective punishment to all foreign nationals, the majority of whom, even those who are undocumented, are honest people trying to earn a living.

The fact is that South Africans are smuggling drugs to other parts of the world and as a result are serving long prison sentences in prisons in Thailand, China, Brazil, Peru and elsewhere. This does not mean that all South Africans are drug traffickers or that citizens of those countries should chase down South Africans on the streets of their countries.

We should all be very concerned about the consequences of this criminality as they could give rise to diplomatic as well as retaliatory measures against South Africans in other countries.

That is why we have met with the diplomatic corps twice to express the views of the South African government very strongly, on behalf of the majority of South Africans who are abhorred by xenophobia and Afrophobia, and we will be meeting them again for an update on the steps we have taken to tackle this situation.

We are working closely with provincial and metro governments in this effort.

This week, together with the Premier, the MECs of the inter-departmental task team established by the Premier, Mayor and Deputy Mayor of eThekwini, we visited some of the flashpoints and addressed people on the ground, uniting them around the peace effort.

We have also met religious leaders and other stakeholders for the same purpose.

We have visited temporary shelters for displaced people and talked to them about our plans to end the violence and facilitate their reintegration.

We heard their complaints and will pay attention to them.

We have committed that we will assist those who wish to return home voluntarily to return home safely and with less disruption.

The peace march held in Durban, which was attended by people from as far away as Gauteng, should further demonstrate the humanity of the people of South Africa and African solidarity.

We must emphasize that not all South Africans engage in this barbarity and that many of us who have friends from outside South Africa, some of whom are now naturalized South Africans and those of us who have traveled a little on this continent, know what hard-working and honest people fellow Africans are.