Supporters of the March and March movement staged a protest in Johannesburg’s city centre on Wednesday, intending to hand over a memorandum calling for stricter enforcement of immigration laws to the Gauteng legislature.
“Out of 52 countries in Africa, they chose to come to South Africa? Ghanaians are here, Nigerians are here, Malawians are here, Mozambicans are here. They can’t be here all at once,” said Christian evangelist Sipho Dlamini, from the Eternal Life International Church.
“Illegal immigrants must go back to their country and fight their own president. Our forefathers died fighting against Afrikaners with their bare hands for our freedom. They bled for our freedom. We fought for this country. It wasn’t built overnight. These people must go to their countries and make their country great,” Dlamini said.
A protester who travelled from Pietermaritzburg, Sicelo Mlaba, said: “We are here to plead with the government to restrict the access of illegal immigrants to the country.
“We have a high unemployment rate and this is not because we don’t have jobs; [it is because] they are occupied by foreigners. It has to stop,” he said.
The president of the United South Africans grouping, Musa Mbewe, said: “I expect the government to be silent and listen to us this time around. When we gave them our votes, we entrusted them with our lives. But now we have overcrowded classrooms filled with these people, and the government expects us to be silent.”
Mandla Totolo, who stays near the Mayfair clinic, said he was part of a group “given permission” to erect informal housing by a councillor in 2020.
He said when the construction was under way and most of the houses were complete, they were chased away by police who were “working hand-in-hand with Somalians”.
“Right now as we speak, the Somalians have converted that place into a parking lot. Some even pay to park there. For them it’s a business now.”
Totolo said he was arrested for being there illegally: “I am attending a case of trespassing as we speak for something that was granted to me.
“Therefore, we are here to plead with the government to hear us, make us the priority and grant us what is rightfully ours,” Totolo said
A marcher who asked to remain anonymous said she came to Johannesburg from Mahikeng in 2019 to run a beauty parlour.
“I tried to apply for a work permit to work in the CBD but that wasn’t possible. Officials wanted me to pay R5,000, which I didn’t have. When I spoke to a [Nigerian] lady who owned a salon, she said I need to pay monthly rent through her. That was frustrating for me. Subsequently, I was able to get a stable job and open a salon in my yard.“
The marchers’ memorandum calls on government to:
- “Address criminal participation of foreigners who open spaza shops.”
- Audit all migrants.
- Review study permits.
- Declare a state of emergency in hotspot areas such as Hillbrow.
- Strip business licenses from people employing undocumented immigrants.
TimesLIVE
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