GOVERNMENT POLICY
Address migrant issue to restore small black business
By reclaiming small business, poor communities could play a decisive role in curtailing the malice of crime and dependence on the state
In his maiden state of the nation address, President Cyril Ramaphosa acknowledged that for several years our economy has not grown at the pace needed to create sufficient jobs or lift poor South Africans out of poverty. Public finances have been constrained, limiting the ability of government to expand its investment in economic and social development. At the same time, small black business has gone into decline, resulting in socio-political problems such as crime, strife and a drop in living standards. In every township and rural area, small businesses have fallen into the hands of new players predominantly from the Asian continent. Previous owners of shops and small enterprises in these communities have been displaced, and in most instances now rely on renting out their premises to the new economic migrants. This phenomenon is not unique to SA; it fits squarely in the ongoing convolutedness and difficulties around the politics of migration, as well as the increasing rejection of u...
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