NATASHA MARRIAN: Anti-immigration protest as a political tool

The June 30 deadline set by anti-illegal immigrant lobby groups remains in place, despite President Cyril Ramaphosa’s address to the nation on Sunday.

What that day will bring poses a serious headache for the Ramaphosa administration, as the anti-immigrant movement increasingly looks like a political tool. Some parties are both stoking and seeking to use the momentum around the protests to energise their election campaigns.

Ramaphosa’s address on Sunday was a sign of a step change in the government’s approach to immigration. There is now a broad acceptance of the problem and an acknowledgment that it is rooted in the deep economic malaise of the past 15 years. The administration also admits systemic weaknesses in enforcing border control, as well as corrupt practices.

Ramaphosa committed to resourcing the department of labour to boost workplace inspections, with the aim of punishing businesses that hire undocumented foreigners. They apparently do this mostly to lower costs and bypass labour laws.

In 2008, protests against foreigners turned violent and police had to use force to quell the outburst of xenophobic resentment across South Africa, mostly in the industrial hubs. The East Rand was the scene of some of the worst violence, with people burnt alive in the streets.

However, in 2008 the ANC held a large majority in parliament, and the violence was not political in the sense that other parties were trying to exploit xenophobia to gain votes at the next election. That is what is happening now.

So far, protests have been largely peaceful. A demonstration through the streets of Boksburg, Benoni and Springs on Wednesday passed without incident, amid a heavy police presence. Protesters called out and met business owners, delivering the ultimatum that they should end their employment of undocumented foreign nationals by June 30.

Deputy labour minister Jomo Sibiya, who has been tasked by labour minister Nomakhosazana Meth with heading up inspections, tells the FM that the department stepped these up long before the current protests. He says the department has been conducting them since 1994, though not on the scale it does now.

There is a security risk. We can’t ignore that

—  Jomo Sibiya

The deep unhappiness over illegal immigration has also caused a shift in the ANC’s approach. The party acknowledged the problem in an unprecedented move at its national general council (NGC) last December.

The base document discussed at the NGC contained much of what Ramaphosa committed to on Sunday: strengthening law enforcement capacity, tightening border controls, enforcing labour laws and reforming the home affairs department.

Sibiya says the ANC views the complaints from civil society as warranted, particularly in light of economic conditions. “We acknowledge what they are complaining about and what they are not happy about, and we are now doing everything we can. It’s not like we were not doing anything before, but we are taking our work to another level.

“That’s why the president is saying we must employ another 10,000 inspectors. Immigration officers are going to be increased by about 280 or so; you can see that we are responding,” he tells the FM. “The crisis is there. We can’t turn a blind eye to it. We acknowledge it. So … give us space to work.”

After taking over the responsibility for labour inspections, Sibiya says he discovered exactly why the problem is urgent, and potentially explosive.

Late last year, for instance, he and his team found a company in Vereeniging employing between 100 and 200 undocumented foreigners. The company had gone as far as to dig underground tunnels to hide those workers in the event of an inspection. Aside from being illegal and morally wrong, says Sibiya, this jeopardised municipal underground infrastructure. The workers were also subjected to inhumane conditions.

Other companies approach the matter differently, budgeting for the fines they could potentially receive from the labour department. Sibiya says the penalties are minor compared to the costs saved by hiring undocumented foreigners.

“They will put money aside to not comply with the labour laws. For example, you have an employer who will say: ‘I’m going to continue employing illegal foreign immigrants because the fines … are not that harsh. They are not that steep. I can put R1m aside for the inspections, which happen maybe twice a year.’ So that’s how deliberate they are.”

This is why the department is now increasing fines to R100,000 per employee found to be in the country illegally. Amendments to labour laws have been drafted to raise maximum fine levels and are set to be debated in parliament, after they were ratified during the last cabinet meeting.

The politicisation of the protests by parties such as ActionSA and the MK Party has deepened the crisis for Ramaphosa’s administration. His security cluster is on high alert, particularly given the experience of the riots after former president Jacob Zuma’s incarceration in July 2021.

“There is a security risk. We can’t ignore that,” says Sibiya. “But our law enforcement agencies are on top of their game. We can’t allow our country to go back to 2021. We are a country of laws, and laws must be respected, whether you are a South African or not. If we say illegal foreign immigrants are not respecting our laws, then South Africans themselves can’t be allowed to not respect our laws.”

June 30 is just weeks away. Ramaphosa’s address to the nation on Sunday was the first step in the response expected from the state. But by all accounts, it has done nothing to quell the rising momentum of protests against foreigners in South Africa.

The July 2021 riots resulted in the deaths of more than 300 people, with a devastating economic cost estimated at R50bn. This time the government will not be surprised as it was in 2021; the acid test will be whether it is prepared for the possibility of the protest turning violent on a large scale — and will be able to contain the fallout.

Marrian is a political analyst at the Bureau for Economic Research