Former South African President Thabo Mbeki has blamed South Africa's economic decline on leadership failures rather than undocumented African immigrants, warning against a growing trend to scapegoat foreign nationals. Mbeki made the comments while speaking at the AUDA-NEPAD@25 High Level Business Breakfast held in Cape Town…
Former South African President Thabo Mbeki has blamed South Africa's economic decline on leadership failures rather than undocumented African immigrants, warning against a growing trend to scapegoat foreign nationals.
Mbeki made the comments while speaking at the AUDA-NEPAD@25 High Level Business Breakfast held in Cape Town on Thursday, where he addressed rising anti-immigrant sentiment and the country's worsening unemployment crisis.
According to Mbeki, South Africa's economic struggles cannot be linked to undocumented Africans, arguing instead that the country's decline began after years of economic growth between 1994 and 2008.
“We know the history in detail of how South Africa, from 1994 to 2008, 2009, reached a six percent growth rate. Since 2009, it has gone in the opposite direction. It was not because of undocumented immigrants,” Mbeki said.
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He said that those responsible for the country's economic recession were “laughing in the corner” while citizens took out their anger on migrants instead of addressing the real causes of unemployment and stagnation.
“The people who caused the decline are laughing in the corner because you're pointing the finger not at them but at someone else,” he said.
Mbeki also reflected on South Africa's relations with the rest of the continent, saying that many Africans still viewed the country as a shared symbol of liberation because of the support given by African countries during the anti-apartheid struggle.
“The struggle was not just for South Africans, it was their struggle,” he said, predicting that Africans would continue to immigrate to South Africa regardless of political hostility or stringent immigration measures.
Mbeki said, “The one prediction I would make is that Africans will keep coming to South Africa. It doesn't matter what you do. You can't change the minds of these Africans.”
The former president warned that the spirit of African integration that defined the continent 25 years ago was slowly fading and urged South Africans to confront the issue constructively rather than foster division.
His comments came as Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema also condemned attacks and hostility towards foreign nationals in South Africa.
In an interview with Sky News shared on Thursday, Malema rejected claims that xenophobia was causing tensions, instead describing the violence and intimidation as “state-sponsored gangsterism”.
Malema said, “There is no xenophobia in South Africa. It is just a group of fraudsters, extortionists, disruptors and corrupt individuals who want to extort money from foreign nationals.”
He cited rape, assault and prison statistics to challenge narratives blaming immigrants for crime, arguing that South Africans themselves were responsible for most of the violent crimes in the country.
“The majority of prisoners are not Zimbabweans, Ghanaians, Nigerians or people from the DRC, they are South African men,” he said.
Malema further accused the government of using anti-immigrant sentiment to distract citizens from the deeper economic and administrative problems facing the country.
Meanwhile, Malema is currently facing legal troubles as a court has sentenced him to five years in prison for illegal weapons possession and an additional two years for illegal ammunition possession.