Floyd Shivambu On Illegal Immigration

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]relation to the protest that in that space to resolve all those crisis.

[00:00:08]And our view by the way in relation to the protest that are led by Gizem Kono and the people of March in March is that all the concerns that they are raising are legitimate.

[00:00:25]And we will not join into the band of those who want to delegitimize and insult those who are saying that we have got a sitting crisis of undocumented and illegal immigration in South Africa.

[00:00:41]It confuses planning.

[00:00:44]It confuses the allocation of resources.

[00:00:47]It confuses responses as to just how many houses do you need to allocate?

[00:00:53]Just how many informal settlements do you want to formalize?

[00:00:58]Just how many jobs are you going to create for our people?

[00:01:02]And one of the issues that we highlight including in our foundational documents is that the private sector business owners are the primary beneficiaries of illegal immigration in South Africa.

[00:01:19]We say it here in our documents.

[00:01:23]We say it here in the restoration manifest that the primary beneficiary of illegal immigration in South Africa is the private sector because they go and employ these unprotected workers from other parts of the continent.

[00:01:43]They employ our brothers and sisters from the continent who are not documented. And then on the payday they call police on them.

[00:01:52]On payday they remind them that remember you are not here in South Africa legally.

[00:01:58]When they try to form a union, they say remember you're not allowed to form a union.

[00:02:03]And that happens even in the construction sector as well.

[00:02:09]Even in the mining sector, in the agricultural sector, during harvesting season it's worse.

[00:02:16]In the hospitality sector, it's the most dominant feature to choose to employ undocumented and illegal immigrants into South Africa. So, the issues that Ngizwe Mchunu and the those that he is leading are raising are legitimate.

[00:02:37]It will not help anyone to stand on the sidelines and insult people who are raising legitimate concerns.

[00:02:47]We need to sit down and talk as to just how do we resolve the crisis of illegal and undocumented immigration in South Africa. And part of the immediate solutions will be to criminalize the employers who purposefully employ illegal and undocumented immigrants into South Africa and take firm action against those.

[00:03:12]There must be serious consequences so that our people are given jobs because it looks like the jobs crisis in South Africa will never be resolved.

[00:03:23]Because if you think that you must create 2 million jobs, when you create those 2 million jobs now, you have got additional 2 million people who take those jobs and then the unemployment crisis remains as is.

[00:03:37]So, we as Mayibuye, we do not delegitimize uh those who are fighting against illegal and undocumented migration and we will actively engage with them.

[00:03:50]We'll sit down with them to say, "What are the practical interventions that we can make even towards local government elections?"

[00:03:59]There are certain things that a local state can do in relation to undocumented migration.

[00:04:07]Particularly on the licensing of small businesses and the so-called spaza shops, which are 90% if not more utilized by those that came from elsewhere.

[00:04:21]So, our our call as well for black economic solidarity is that let us support each other.

[00:04:30]Because the other problem as well is that even when a black person opens a small-scale trading, we still think that it's better for us to go and buy from someone that we do not know than those that we know every day.

[00:04:45]Our our people's businesses get drowned because we do not support each other.

[00:04:53]We're making a statistically surveyed observation here that as black people, we collectively earn more than 2 trillion rands every year, but we spend majority if not the entirety of our earnings as social grants, as wages, as dividends for those who are in business. We we we expend that amount of money on people that are not are not like us, that do not look like us. We we We enrich even the white capitalists.

[00:05:32]And we think it is it is progress when Shoprite and Pick n Pay and Spar invades our areas.

[00:05:41]We don't see anything wrong with even when all these other retailers invade our areas. We think it is status to associate with them instead of supporting our own people in terms of businesses so that we can collectively prosper.

[00:05:58]And that is the principle which I Africa a my way movement is always preaching and say we should promote a a in any given moment.