MARCH AND MARCH DESCEND UPON SILVERTON POLICE STATION

March and March Movement members joined by Operation Dudula members, Put South Aftjca First movement and community of Nellmapius and Mamelodi at Silverton Police Station photos by Dimakatso Modipa

Members of the March and March civic movement descended upon the Silverton Police Station in Tshwane on Thursday afternoon to demand that the police help them in rounding up illegal immigrants residing in Nellmapius and chasing them out of the area.

According to March and March Coordinator Sthembile Simelani, the illegal immigrants are behind all societal ills in the area.

The said societal ills, according to Simelani, are drug-peddling, kidnapping of local girl and using them as sex slaves, human trafficking, prostitution and fake pastorhood.

“We also want to send a message to the captains of industry in Silverton to fire all illegal immigrants that they have employed in their factories, or else door to door campaigns shall be conducted on their factories,” he said.

He pointed out that employing an illegal foreigner is an offence and urged Silverton factory owners to give jobs back to the local citizens who are the ones who originally built the Silverton industrial area into what it is today .

“As local citizens we have hands, we can work, now why turn your backs on us and hire illegal immigrants who are in actual fact spooks which can’t be traced once they have committed a crime?” asked Simelani.

He called upon landlords to stop harbouring illegal immigrants in their yards as they risked being fined up to R10 000 for doing so.

Operation Dudula National Convener Pat Mokgalusi said he attended the march to show support to the weekly March and March Thursday marches.

“The objective of the Thursday marches is to awaken this sleeping tiger called the government to start enforcing labour and immigration laws as there are so many illegal immigrants in this country,” said Mokgalusi.

“We want to see an end to bogus home affairs offices in the streets which issue fraudulent documents to foreigners and we want to see mass deportation in our lifetime,” he enthused.

MK Party Ward 86 Nellmapius chairperson Reuben Kekae told Tshwane Talks at the march that the mandate they have received from the upper structures of MK Party is to join forces with March and March to get rid of illegal immigrants.

“African foreigners are our brothers and sisters but we want them to contribute to the economy in a legal way, otherwise their economic activities are tantamount to stealing from us as the citizens of this country because they provide cheap labour to employers at the expense of the jobless local South African-born citizens,” he said.

In response to the memorandum delivered to the Silverton Police Station, Colonel Mushata acknowledged the fact that the concerns raised by the marchers are genuine and that they as police will continuously engage all stakeholders to resolve the issue of illegal immigrants.

“This challenge about illegal immigrants did not start yesterday but has been going on for over thirty years and in the process we are going to share progress reports with you as the community to ascertain whether we are on the right track or not in our mission to resolve the issue of illegal immigration,” he said.