Sir
The issue of porous borders and a very large number of illegal immigrants into South Africa must be encountered squarely. The United Nations acknowledges that the world is witnessing the highest levels of displacement on record. At the end of 2016, an unprecedented 65.6 million people around the world had been forced to flee their countries on account of conflict and persecution. Refugees, alarmingly, totalled 22.5 million, over half of whom were under the age of 18. Both refugees and host countries face difficulties and complexities.
As ardent constitutionalists, we in COPE believe that South Africa must play a proportionate role in sheltering refugees who meet the required criteria and are registered as such by South African authorities. Furthermore, we in COPE are committed to upholding the United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, adopted in 1951.
Such commitments form the basis of all our policies.
However, allowing people to come into South Africa illegally and occupy buildings in city centres, as in Johannesburg, is untenable. COPE is therefore supportive of the efforts of the local authority, of which COPE is a coalition partner, to start cleaning up old and disused buildings in the inner city. Such buildings must be made habitable to accommodate South Africans who were removed to the city’s distant outskirts under apartheid.
The need for rapid spatial transformation and the densification of our cities to reflect our demographics under democracy is of paramount importance.
The reversal of apartheid cannot be hampered by foreign nationals forcefully occupying inner-city buildings. A balancing act has to be performed so that the previously disadvantaged in our society do not lose out disproportionately.
Undocumented foreign nationals also pose a criminal threat to South Africans as has been repeatedly shown over the past years.
COPE also recognises that the national government has to do much more to integrate long-term refugees and economic migrants into local communities so that they can share their skills and expertise with them and become part and parcel of those communities. From experience, we have seen that where foreign nationals keep to themselves and stifle economic growth within communities, trouble erupts.
The tightening of our borders, however, is an absolute imperative in crafting a more successful solution to the refugee influx. We must be able to deal effectively and correctly with the refugees and economic migrants coming into our country so that they are in possession of the correct documents.
The need to place restrictions on economic migrants in respect of the retail trade is a necessity. With the skills that they bring, it is important for them to use their entrepreneurial skills to grow the economy and to expand exports rather than close down space for our country’s emerging entrepreneurs at the retail level. It is also very important that both refugees and economic migrants who are in South Africa legitimately are registered as taxpayers the moment they enter business so that locals are not aggrieved about their operating unfairly outside the bounds of the law applicable to all business people.
This is a role that SARS must fulfill earnestly in the interest of peace and harmony.
COPE believes implicitly in the rule of law and in the supremacy of the Constitution. We are also committed to upholding the United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. What we do not want is a free-for-all situation emanating from government incompetence and corruption that exacerbates tension and leads to conflict.
Refugees, correctly handled, have a justified right to receive protection in our country but with it goes the responsibility of their transparently abiding by our laws and seeking economic opportunities in collaboration with local communities.
Mosiuoa LekotaÂ
COPE President
