LISTEN | Local businesses must be run by South Africans: Herman Mashaba

Small businesses in South Africa must be run by South Africans, not foreigners, says ActionSA leader and former businessman Herman Mashaba.

It's his solution to promote the township economy. “Its simple, you can do it overnight. Businesses in our communities cannot be run by people who we don't know how they came into the country and how they brought the money in,” he said.

Listen to the conversation with Mashaba:

He said ActionSA's plan is to know everyone running a business and their legal documents, adding the country has become a “dumping place for counterfeit expired goods”.

Economic growth is the first point of his party's manifesto which says it will empower the informal economy.

Mashaba said foreigners should come to the country for the right reasons based on the country's constitution and not for criminality.

“This country is not looking for drug dealers, it's not looking for people who are going to bring money through mattresses. This is not the type of foreigners we need,” Mashaba said on the Sunday Times Politics Weekly podcast.

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