MARCH AND MARCH PAINTS PRETORIA RED AS IT CALLS FOR RAMAPHOSA TO DECLARE STATE OF DISASTER

Fast-growing civic movement March and March members and supporters painted the Pretoria CBD red on Tuesday.

This in demand for illegal foreigners to leave the country as they are a burden to the people of South Africa.

Various grassroots organisations joined March and March in its demonstrations at the Paul Kruger Square in the city centre of Pretoria, before proceeding to the Sunnyside area which has been flooded by foreigners, especially Nigerians.

“We are going to present our demands to the office of the Premier of Gauteng Panyaza Lesufi as well as to the office of the Mayor of Tshwane Nasiphi Moya and we call for the enactment of the township economy by-law that puts the economy of the townships strictly under the control of local residents while in the process removing Somalians, Pakistanis and Ethiopians from the township spaza shop economy and replace them with local residents,” said March and March civic National Executive Committee member and Gauteng convener Sandile Dube.

“We the people of South Africa have always warned the South African government that its failure to know as to how many foreigners are in the country is dangerous,” he said.

“We have noticed that there is resistance to self-deportation by illegal foreigners in the province of Gauteng, hence we are taking our marches to the centres where these illegal foreigners are hiding themselves,” he said.

“We are calling upon President Cyril Ramaphosa to declare a state of disaster regarding the issue of illegal foreigners because we are sitting on a time bomb,” lamented Dube.

“Leaders of the so-called Diaspora who are based in South Africa are sitting on their laurels and are actually selling out their own people because they are doing nothing to persuade the governments of their own countries to be accountable to their people,” he said.

“There must be organisations like March and March in countries like Zimbabwe, DRC Mozambique and Nigeria so that the governments of these countries would start taking care of their people instead of treating them like outcasts,” he said.

“Next time we are not going to only march but we will go right into the flats and houses of the illegal foreigners and remove them so that they can leave the country,” enthused Inwooners Baagi Civic Movement (IBCM) President David Ratladi.

“We are going to march until we win; until the government listens to us,” said Chairperson of Concerned Tshwane Residents (CTR) Kagiso Kekana.

Khustaz Mtwentwe of Standup South Africa told the gathered crowd that his organisation supports March and March and the citizens of South Africa in their demand for their country to be governed well.

“In Pretoria residents are struggling with drugs and we are calling upon the SAPS police station in Sunnyside to do right by South Africans; to do the right thing in the flats of Sunnyside and we are calling for the government of the province to do right by the citizens of the province as we have too many illegal foreigners in this country; we have elected these government officials to implement the laws of this country yet they have decided to spend R600 million to protect illegal foreigners, now the question is when are they going to protect South Africans” fumed Mtwentwe as he in the process pointed out that the South African media is promoting illegal foreigners ahead of South African citizens.

“We are here to say this country belongs to us and not foreigners; that we did not bother Zimbabwe but that Zimbabweans came to bother us; we did not bother Nigeria but that Nigerians came to bother us,” said Mtwentwe.

“Commanders my message is clear; we are going to continue with our programme to hunt down illegal foreigners wherever they are and implement section 42 of the immigration laws,” said Operation Dudula member known as Faeza.

Upon reaching the Sunnyside police station the determined marchers handed their memorandum to SAPS Tshwane District Commissioner Samuel Thine, TMPD Commissioner Yolande Faro, City of Tshwane Municipality MMC for Community Safety Hannes Coetzee and an immigration officer from the Department of Home Affairs.

Sithembile Simelani read out the memorandum before handing it to the said officials who acknowledged its receipt and signed it.