Gauteng premier warns ANC leaders in Johannesburg not to "play" with the power they have been given.
Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi has highlighted illegal immigration as a concern the ANC must address.
He was speaking at the opening of the 16th ANC Greater Johannesburg regional conference on Wednesday.
Lesufi says ANC can deal with illegal immigration
“We cannot have people that we do not know who they are, we do not have their fingerprints, we do not know how they came to our country to do as they wish here.
“Our people are now sending a strong message that these people cannot be forever in our country unless they followed the right path to enter our country. If they did not follow the right door they must go out the same way they came in,” he said.
Lesufi said despite some political parties using illegal migration as a focal point of their campaign, there are indications that communities still want the ANC to lead.
“They thought that they could contest us on this issue of illegal immigrants, but our people did not vote for them because they understand that the ANC has the ability to deal with these things.
“You do not just close clinics, you cannot just close schools and you cannot also come to G20 and think that you can disrupt it because you have an issue that you want to raise. The issue of undocumented people that cannot be accounted for is an issue that we need to tackle,” he said.
Criminality
Lesufi said it is of concern that some undocumented immigrants are behind some criminal activities in the country. He said the fact that they entered illegally can make them hard to trace.
“Two of our policemen were gunned down by people whom we do not know how they entered our country,” he said.
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Corruption
Lesufi said the other issue that South Africans were asking the ANC to deal with is corruption. He said if the party does not deal with this matter “it is the end of the road”.
“Our people accept that we have created institutions like the Hawks, they accept that we have created institutions like the National Prosecuting Authority, the Public Protector, they accept that we have intelligence but they believe that for those institutions to work it depends on your surname and it depends on your association before matters can be attended to,” he said.
Unemployment
South Africans are also complaining about the high rate of unemployment, he said.
“They are of the view that we do not have the ideas or the strategies that can allow the majority of young people to have decent work. They are of the view that we are obsessed with our internal differences and we are missing a very important angle – creating jobs for our people.
“They argue that indeed opportunities are created, they argue that indeed government has the capacity to create opportunities. Their main fear is that even when those opportunities are created it’s the friends of friends who get those opportunities and the ordinary people are left out,” he said.
Lesufi said in total there are eight areas of concern that the ANC must work on to replenish public trust. These are just some of them.
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