Durban-based organisation calling itself Ubuntu Business Umbrella (ABU), Nathi Mbatha, says the organisation will be ramping its calls for the deportation of illegal immigrants. Picture: Supplied.
Durban — More voices, including KwaZulu-Natal Premier Thamsanqa Ntuli, are joining the chorus for illegal immigrants to be ejected from the country, with marches planned in Durban in the coming weeks.
Amid the rising calls for the deportation, a two-city march hosted by the Progressive Forces will be staged in Durban and Pretoria on September 23. The march is aimed at putting pressure on the government to sign a White Paper on immigration, demanding a national census audit for 2022 and also mass deportation of illegal immigrants.
Also entering the fray was a Durban-based organisation, Ubuntu Business Umbrella (ABU). It was planning a separate march in Durban.
The organisation, representing small businesses, including hawkers, held a marathon meeting on Wednesday in Durban, launching a petition targeting illegal immigrants in the city.
Its chairperson, Nathi Mbatha, told the Daily News: “We have a petition that we have formulated and will be going around the province for people to sign it, (and) submit it to the government. Our government at national and local spheres must ring-fence informal trading for South Africans only. Most illegal immigrants have found a haven in the informal trading space.
“This is a sector (informal) that will help us create employment for unemployed South Africans,” said Mbatha.
Mbatha added that the issue of illegal immigrants should be handled with caution because it had the potential to stoke tensions, which he said was not what they desired.
The organisation was formed in 2012 and is estimated to have just over 10 000 members, mostly informal traders, with Durban being its strongest base.
In 2008, tempers flared between local and illegal immigrants, with violence erupting in Alexandra township in Johannesburg and spreading to other provinces, including KZN, resulting in more than 60 fatalities.
Ntuli has been unrelenting in his call for illegal immigrants to be deported to their countries of origin.
Ntuli said earlier this week: “I will lead the campaign to deport illegal immigrants back to their homes. They should come back when they have proper documentation. All the illegal immigrants who are here in the province, you must return to your homes and obtain proper documents.”
Nevertheless, Ntuli stressed that he was not xenophobic.
“I am just trying to make our province a better place by ensuring every person here is documented,” he said.
Ntuli vowed to rope in provincial police commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi at the service delivery and crime Imbizo in Caluza in Pietermaritzburg on Tuesday.
He made similar utterances at the reed dance ceremony in Ingwavuma.
This comes after the police arrested more than 120 illegal immigrants living in hijacked buildings in Durban. The issue became highly politicised before the elections, with the EFF opposed to deporting illegal migrants.
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