Impact Forum has appealed to the Department of Home Affairs as well as the National Treasury to employ 10 000 more people as immigration officers.
The Impact Forum members at Home Affairs photos by Dimakatso Modipa
This as a way of adding manpower to deal with illegal immigration to avoid a situation whereby ordinary citizens and organisations take the law inti their own hands and arrest illegal foreigners.
Now to drive home their message in this regard, the organisation staged a protest march at the offices of the Department of Home Affairs and handed in a memorandum of grievances which was received by Director of Public Affairs Simon Ratau on behalf of the department after it was read and handed to him by the organisation’s member Tshimollo Mphela.
The protest march started at the old Marabastad Depot before proceeding to the Department of Home Affairs.
“We have done our research and we have found that the Department of Home Affairs is understaffed in terms of immigration officers,” said Impact Forum President and founder Rollence Mabula while speaking to Tshwane Talks outside the Home Affairs offices in Tshwane on Tuesday.
“We are therefore appealing to the Department of Finance to allocate a budget to the Department of Home Affairs regarding the hiring of more immigration officers so that we will stop seeing this thing of xenophobic people impersonating police officers and making themselves self-appointed police officers,” lamented Mabula.
“We want the Department to do the right thing and make sure that the economy of this country and all people living in it, including foreigners, are protected,” he said.
Mabula explained that though he and the marchers were only 50 in number, he is pleased that their message has been delivered.
“We are not politicians, we don’t necessarily deal with numbers,” explained Mabula.
” This issue of illegal immigration and the so-called xenophobic attacks has been going on for a long time and we are here to put the blame at the door of the Department of Home Affairs and assist it as it can do better and change the situation whereby it only has 800 immigration officers,” he said.
Mabula appealed to members of the community who have not yet submitted their CVs to bring them along on the 26 of May so that they can be submitted by Impact Forum to the Department of Home Affairs for employment as immigration officers.
Writer and public speaker Thapelo Masokwane, who was also at the march, explained that he is against xenophobic attacks against foreign nationals but that he is concerned about illegal immigration.
” We are saying we must not use violence to solve the issue of illegal immigration as it gives a bad image of South Africa and on the 26 of May we will come back here and demand that the politicians explain to us as to how they will alleviate and ultimately curb the issue of illegal migration,” he said.
Please see attached for the memorandum submitted by Impact Forum:
minister of finance memorundum 05may
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