The ANC’s social transformation committee recently stated that undocumented foreign nationals are placing a strain on social services.
According to committee member Thokozile Xasa, undocumented migrants are also linked to “issues such as street stabbings and all of that”.
This flies in the face of previous stances by the ANC, in which the organisation downplayed the issue of illegal migrants and accused South Africans of being “xenophobic” when, deeply frustrated by the effects of an uncontrolled influx of people, they attacked migrants. This flip-flopping on the issue highlights the absence of a coherent response to the problem.
When violent flare-ups have occurred between locals and undocumented migrants ANC politicians have been quick to condemn locals haughtily as xenophobically envious of migrants. This condemnation is based on ignorance and a patent laziness to study and understand what is really happening on the ground.
Politicians and commentators recently severely criticised Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba, health minister Aaron Motsoaledi and actor Hlomla Dandala who commented how migrants affect various aspects of life in SA. These criticisms were based on ignorance and a romanticised view of real, hard economic issues and the relationship SA has with its immediate neighbours and beyond. Most of the critics don’t even live in the areas where the effects of the influx are most felt.
According to a 2015 estimate by Statistics SA there are 500,000 to 1-million undocumented migrants in SA. Other credible estimates have been as high as 5-million. There is no accurate estimate of the number of undocumented migrants in SA — an indictment of the ANC government. How does it hope to provide adequate social services without knowing the exact number of people they will be providing those services to?
Violent flare-ups
Most undocumented migrants end up in the largely African-populated townships, with competition for resources and services as the immediate result. Citizens have long complained about the pressures that undocumented migrants exert on housing, schooling and health facilities.
Now, with an election looming, the ANC is finally awakening from its long slumber on the issue. Yet it is friction arising out of these pressures that caused the violent flare-ups between locals and migrants in 2008, 2009, 2013, 2015 and 2017.
Most ANC top brass and spokespeople reside in the suburbs, away from the friction in Soweto, Alexandra, KwaMashu, Umlazi and Khayelitsha. During flare-ups, rather than getting to grips with what is going on they prefer to arrogantly lord it over the masses, from whom they still expect votes, and make the lazy accusation that South Africans are “xenophobic”. South Africans are no more protective of their right of access to proper social services and amenities than people anywhere else in the world.
The other false charge is that locals are racist because white migrants are never attacked. But do white migrants, undocumented or not, end up in townships? From the early and mid-1900s, South Africans have been living in peaceful coexistence with migrants from neighbouring countries. The difference now is that instead of a manageable number, citizens have to deal with a deluge.
No gratitude
When president Thabo Mbeki condemned South Africans as “xenophobic” during the 2008 riots, the governments of Kenya and Nigeria were quick to ask the government for reparative payments regarding their citizens’ properties that had been damaged during the riots. Talk about scoring an own goal!
Some ANC luminaries have wondered why South Africans show no gratitude to neighbouring countries, which harboured exiles during the liberation struggle. Yes, our neighbours harboured SA exiles, and we should be grateful for their generosity. That, however, does not mean SA should now entertain undocumented migrants in the greate numbers it is experiencing.
In 1988, SA exiles totalled about 20,000 globally. Publications after 1994 have pushed this estimate up to 30,000. This was a community comprising students, guerrillas, liberation movement bureaucrats and private individuals, and it was spread out over countries in Europe, the Americas, Australasia and the bulk in sub-Saharan African countries. It is therefore disingenuous of the ANC to claim that just because a few thousand SA exiles were harboured in African countries we should now allow millions from these countries free access to SA, undocumented and unregulated.
The ANC leaders who were in exile know very well how they were regulated and kept under the control of their host countries. Their reluctance to apply similar measures at home is bewildering.
Most migrants are in SA because of political strife, famine and failed economies in their countries of origin. Rather than face up to their own shortcomings, some African leaders have conveniently jumped onto the “we harboured you” bandwagon to suit their own interests — certainly not those of their citizens.
It is convenient for them to point the accusing finger of “xenophobia” at South Africans. Former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo is one, yet he should be the last to talk — Nigeria expelled 1-million Ghanaians in the 1980s under the “Ghana must go” campaign.
Another is Robert Mugabe, whose citizens form the largest component of undocumented migrants in SA, having fled political repression and economic collapse on his watch.
Other Southern African Development Community (SADC) leaders have been just as complicit, with one exception — former Botswana president Ian Khama.
In a heated meeting in Harare in 2015, former president Jacob Zuma was criticised by his SADC counterparts because of attacks on their nationals by South Africans. The most aggressive assault was from Mugabe. In that meeting, Zuma correctly asked his counterparts: why are their citizens in SA?
Khama urged the SADC leaders to address the root causes of the problem, which included poor leadership and economic mismanagement. In a stinging conclusion, he said: “Let us address real issues and stop behaving as if SA is the employment bureau for the African continent.”
The current SA government, or whatever government is in power after the May elections, should start looking more seriously at the problem of undocumented migrants to ensure foreign policy and relations with the country’s neighbours take this burning domestic issue into account.
• Motsisi is a former educationist, investment banker and partner at KPMG who is completing an MPhil in theology.
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