EDITORIAL: Dopey Nxesi is the problem, not business

Let’s get one thing clear: the ANC-led government is responsible for the porous state of SA’s borders, stubbornly high unemployment levels and a shocking health-care system which often strips the most vulnerable of their dignity.

During almost three decades of ANC rule, the deep administrative and structural reforms required to fix all three areas have been ignored or steeped in plan after plan with little to no proper insight or implementation. Corruption and mismanagement have played particularly insidious roles.

Yet this week employment & labour minister Thulas Nxesi had the gall to blame business for employing foreign nationals in low-skilled jobs which can be filled by locals. 

Foreigners, and now business, have become convenient scapegoats for the failure of successive ANC administrations. Limpopo health MEC Phophi Ramathuba caused a stir when a video emerged of her chastising a foreign national for placing strain on the health-care system in her province. 

In an interview with Business Times, Nxesi said he was pushing for harsher punishment for businesses which employ foreigners instead of South Africans in low-skilled jobs. He was taking aim at the hospitality, security and agricultural sectors for employing many foreign nationals. 

He called for harsher punishment for businesses which employ foreigners when there is local labour available, especially at low-skilled levels. At present, the fines these businesses face are inconsequential, he added. Instead, he wants companies to be fined a percentage of their turnover or profit.

“We must go very hard,” he said. The government has to respond in light of the high unemployment levels, he added.

Nxesi, a former trade unionist, has been at the helm of the labour & employment department since 2019, with little progress to show on either front. 

He is on record as saying SA does not have a xenophobia problem but one linked to a scramble for resources. This comes as communities have — for the first time since the xenophobic violence in 2008 — organised themselves into sophisticated, structured groupings to tackle illegal immigration. 

This organised formation under the name “Operation Dudula” went as far as pulling people out of hospital queues and barring them entry to a hospital in Katlehong due to their skin tone. But no, Nxesi does not see a xenophobia problem. Back in 2008, more than 60 people were killed, 50,000 mostly undocumented foreigners were displaced and 40,000 left SA during a month of attacks on foreigners across seven provinces. It is mind-boggling that after that xenophobic violence 14 years ago, the ANC government is still misdiagnosing and scapegoating instead of getting to the root of the problem.

Then again, this is in line with its conduct in every aspect of public life. The only real movement seen in the dry, ageing wheels of the skedonk it has become is when an election rolls around.