HOW CAN A COUNTRY WITH UNEMPLOYMENT RATE OF 43% OFFER JOBS TO FOREIGNERS?

How can a country like South Africa which itself suffers a 43% unemployment rate continue to offer jobs to foreigners, be they legal or illegal immigrants?

I checked the unemployment rate of countries like Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Pakistan, Somalia, Ethiopia and Mozambique, and it has dawned on me that the unemployment rate in those countries is not as bad as that which is being experienced in South Africa.

The following are the unemployment rates of the aforementioned countries:

1. Nigeria- 4,3%
2. Zimbabwe- 8,5%
3. Mozambique -3,5% to 6,6%
4. Malawi- 5% to 6%
5. Somalia-19%
6. Pakistan- 7,11%
7. Ethiopia – 3,5%

These unemployment rates are bearable by any standards, and are not a national catastrophe as is the case in this country.

And why are unemployment rates so low in the aforementioned countries as compared to South Africa?

The answer is simple:

Almost all unemployed people on this continent flock to South Africa for the proverbial greener pastures.

Now given these crisis, shouldn’t all employers in South Africa, starting with the government and municipalities, as well as restaurant owners, factory owners, banks and retail store owners prioritise hiring local South African citizens as we have a job crisis here, while the aforementioned countries don’t have any job crisis to speak of?

And this question is also directed to the madam of the house in Waterkloof, Sandton, Durban, Cape Town and also in townships like Mamelodi, Soweto, Umlazi and Gugulethu.

It is said that “charity begins at home” and let me hasten to add that if charity doesn’t begin at home, then it becomes hypocrisy.

The government and all the above-mentioned sectors are hypocritical in that they want to be seen by the whole world as being accomodative and loving towards foreigners by giving them jobs, while their own people are swimming in a pool of unemployment.

Jobs are available in South Africa, but the problem is that they have been given to foreigners in most cases.

Whether they are legal or illegal here, whether they are spaza shop owners or hair salon owners, whether they are professionals or mere labourers, all these foreigners working in South Africa are failures who couldn’t get jobs in their own countries, finish en klaar!

They are unemployable in their own countries, yet some of them have the temerity to call unemployed South Africans lazy and stupid, while in their own countries these are the derogatory names that are used to describe them.

In township parlance, these foreigners are “loafers” in their own countries and have decided to come and offer cheap labour here in South Africa; something that benefits the elite in South Africa.

This is why the elite in South Africa don’t want foreigners to leave this country.

If these people knew that they can easily be employed back in their home countries, then they would not insist on staying and working in South Africa where people complain about jobs being taken by foreigners.

Now seeing that there is already already incidents of violence between some foreigners and some local South African citizens, my advice to the government is that all embassies must be declared temporary refugee camps where foreigners can stay while awaiting verification before being deported to their homelands.

This scenario will avert a situation whereby violence would ensue when they come into contact with South African citizens.

Now nedless to say, the SIU report has revealed that due to corruption at the Department of Home Affairs, many foreigners are using fraudulent documents to live in this country and anyone who claims they are here legally must be thoroughly verified and reasons for their coming to South Africa must be scrutinised.

This very suggestion is backed up by the fact that rich and famous people like President Mugabe’s son Bellarmine Mugabe, fugitive self- made prophet Shepherd Bushiri and sex pervet pastor Timothy Omotoso were all found to have been in the country illegally after through scrutiny.

For a foreigner to simply present documents which at face value indicate they are here legally is not enough; reasons for their presence here must be revealed and in that way it will emerge that many of them don’t have the right to be here.