WATCH | ‘The brand is hurting’: Govt warns immigration backlash damaging SA

Growing anti-migrant protests in SA have begun to hurt the country’s image and businesses as well as the arts.

This was revealed on Sunday by justice and constitutional development minister Mmamoloko Kubayi, who said the impact was already being felt by South African companies operating on the continent and by local artists whose work opportunities were being affected.

Speaking during an inter-ministerial committee briefing on irregular migration in Pretoria, Kubayi, the committee’s chairperson, admitted that the growing backlash linked to immigration tensions was beginning to damage Brand SA.

“The brand is hurting. We can’t lie about it,” Kubayi said.

She said more than 40,000 undocumented migrants have been arrested since the beginning of the year, and more than 2,000 repatriated.

Seven days ago, President Cyril Ramaphosa highlighted the immigration issue in a televised address to the nation.

Kubayi warned that hostility towards foreign nationals and perceptions of xenophobia were creating economic and social consequences beyond SA’s borders.

“South African companies are affected, and we are providing support services and consular services for those businesses on the continent and outside the continent,” she said.

She said concerns around SA’s treatment of foreign nationals were increasingly affecting the country’s reputation abroad.

One of the sectors already feeling the impact is the arts and entertainment industry, where South African performers rely heavily on opportunities across the continent.

“The majority of South African artists perform on the continent, and many of them are seeing their gigs being cancelled. One artist did reach out to me to say all their headline shows were cancelled on the continent. This is an income loss for South Africans,” she said.

Kubayi said the government’s position remains that illegal immigration should be dealt with through lawful enforcement processes rather than through intimidation or attacks on foreign nationals.

The Criminal Procedure Act allows you to do citizen arrests. It doesn’t allow you to do victimisation and intimidation.

—   Mmamoloko Kubayi

“That’s why we’re saying let’s deal with the issue of illegal immigrants. We understand what communities are dealing with based on the basis that these are illegal people; therefore, [we must] enforce the law,” she said.

“And those that you have within the borders legally must be protected like South Africans are protected.”

Kubayi stressed that the government was working to communicate that South Africans were not inherently hostile towards foreign nationals.

“South Africans are not xenophobic; South Africans are not violent. We are fully for vigilantism to be rejected by communities for attacks on foreign nationals, because they do, to a certain extent, affect others who are not even foreign nationals in terms of language and how they look,” she said.

“It can not only threaten the brand, but it can also hurt our social cohesion. It can divide us further in terms of our cultural diversity.”

Home affairs minister Leon Schreiber revealed that there are only 832 home affairs inspectors in SA, of whom 56 were assisting in the repatriation of 7,000 Malawians who have taken refuge at a park in Sherwood, Durban.

“On any given day, that gets stretched because it is a very small group of people doing very, very extensive work. Unfortunately, we still have some paper-based systems and interviews. So it can become an intensive process,” he said.

The pressure on the system is particularly evident in Durban, where thousands of Malawian nationals, of whom 1,140 are undocumented, are waiting to be repatriated.

Kubayi revealed that the Malawian government had provided eight buses to transport its citizens home and that South Africa would support those efforts with 10 additional buses.

However, she added, to repatriate the 7,000 Malawians, they needed at least 100 buses.

She said nearly 1,000 Malawian nationals had already been deported.

Kubayi also announced plans to revive a court facility at the Lindela Repatriation Centre and establish a specialised court at OR Tambo International Airport to speed up immigration-related cases.

“We do believe that it will assist in fast-tracking matters so that those who need to be deported can be deported and those who require legal processes can be attended to without delay,” she said.

Kubayi urged communities not to take immigration enforcement into their own hands, as had happened during recent anti-immigration protests and marches.

“The Criminal Procedure Act allows you to do citizen arrests. It doesn’t allow you to do victimisation and intimidation. When an arrest is made, you hand over to the police. You don’t beat people up, and you don’t intimidate people. The CPA is very clear; it has to be exercised within the confines of the law. Anything else is illegal,” she said.

“We need to vehemently correct the false narrative that SA is inherently xenophobic or unwelcoming to people; this is not true,” she said.

Sowetan