Rustenburg - The is an urgent need to address the immigration policy in South Africa, the Good Party said on Sunday.
This followed deadly clashes between Lesotho and Zimbabwe nationals in Robertson, near Cape Town, on Thursday over alleged jobs competition.
At least 20 people were reportedly injured and several shacks torched during the clashes.
“While farmworkers originally from Zimbabwe and Lesotho engage in deadly xenophobic violence in Robertson, near Cape Town, tens of thousands of South African farmworkers are unemployed and live in squalor on the fringes of rural towns,” said Good general secretary Brett Herron.
“This toxic and unjust tragedy is a direct consequence of South Africa’s non-existent immigration policy and porous borders, but it is also a situation for which farm-owners must account. For it is they who have systematically reduced the number of South Africans they employ and accommodate on their farms, in favour of cheaper and more exploitable foreign labour.”
He said the party condemned the perpetrators of the violence in Robertson, and called for their arrest and deportation.
“We further condemn all who seek to manipulate anti-foreigner emotion for political ends. We call on the State to speed up systems and processes that will enable it to reduce the number of undocumented immigrant workers vying with local people for precious jobs.”
A leader of the Lesotho nationals told television news channel Newzroom Afrika that they have agreed that Basotho and Zimbabweans should share the farm jobs on a 50 percent basis.
He said this meant if a farmer employed 50 people, 25 of them must be Basotho and the other 25 Zimbabwean.
The Department of Employment and Labour said it would probe the alleged illegal foreign nationals’ employment on Robertson farms in the Western Cape.
In a statement, Western Cape provincial chief inspector, David Esau, said there were no records from the Department of Employment and Labour indicating that corporate visas were issued for any foreign nationals to work on the farms, prompting the department to launch an investigation into the allegations.
Esau said the department intended to engage all relevant role players in a stakeholder engagement to form a collaboration that would ensure compliance with labour laws.
“We need the labour brokers to tell us where they have placed people and on which farms so that we can go to those farms and use the Immigration Act to see if the people are legally in the country.
“Employers have a vicarious liability, which the department will enforce because it means that as an employer, you were aware of the person’s illegality and should have reported it. If farmers have illegally employed people in the country, the department will be forced to refer the matter to [department of] home affairs for action.”
The Department of Home Affairs, the South African Police Service, together with the Department of Employment and Labour was expected to conduct joint inspections on all farms in Robertson to determine whether employers were adhering to labour legislation and following proper procedures when facilitating recruitment at their workplaces.
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