African People’s Convention (APC) leader Themba Godi has blamed corrupt government officials and unscrupulous “capitalists” who employ illegal foreigners for the purposes of exploitation for the tensions over foreign nationals.
Godi’s comments come as tensions simmer between South Africans who are members of the Operation Dudula Movement and foreign nationals who have accused the formation of targeting foreign nationals.
The movement has been seen as inciting violence between locals and foreign nationals. But Godi said the anger towards foreign nationals has been misdirected.
“The issue is not whether they assisted us during apartheid or not. Kwame Nkrumah wrote about this, that the capitalists are going to create an environment where the working class fight each other for the crumbs.
“I saw in Cape Town migrants from Lesotho and Zimbabwe fighting over jobs. We have seen our people fighting over these curbs. These are the capitalists and they prefer illegal immigrants,” Godi said.
He said business people and corrupt government officials who create the kind of environment that South Africa finds itself in should be the ones who are challenged and shamed.
“Unless we transform our economies from their colonial foundation and trajectory, we will never improve the lives of our people.”
Godi said this was a systemic problem with the South African economy, with high youth unemployment and worker exploitation.
“The problem is not unemployment, it is exploitation. The system of capitalism produces what we have, which is a reserve army of the unemployed and the super-exploitation of those who are employed,” Godi said.
The SA Council of Churches has warned of the possibility of severe violence between South Africans and desperate foreigners should Operation Dudula continue in its current form.
The leaders of Operation Dudula claim that the fight is not only against illegal foreigners but against lawlessness and drugs in communities.
The EFF has criticised some of the leaders of Operation Dudula, such as Nhlanhla Lux, describing them as vigilantes and criminals.
The government, meanwhile, has made several pronouncements in ensuring that South African workers receive preference when it comes to employment and that employers in some industries were compliant with labour laws in terms of the number of foreign nationals hired.
A group of foreign nationals has threatened to strike in protest against the Dudula movement, but the protest march has not materialised.