Fikile Mbalula, South Africa’s transport minister, has suggested that “Pakistanis and illegal foreigners” are a contributing factor to high unemployment in the country.
Mbalula was responding to questions at a South African Youth Economic Council (SAYEC) conference on Wednesday when one speaker confronted him about the country’s lack of job opportunities for the youth.
“He sold his shop to the Pakistanis because he couldn’t compete with them,” Mbalula told the crowd, explaining that his uncle had to sell his shop because Pakistani nationals were selling goods and products at a cheaper price.
He said there was a need to interrogate where Pakistani nationals were getting their supply to be able to sell cheaply.
According to Stats South Africa, the overall unemployment rate in South Africa is 35 percent, with youth constituting more than half of that figure. This has frequently led to conflict between immigrants and groups of South Africans who blame foreign nationals for taking jobs and businesses supposedly meant for the locals.
For years, intergenerational protests have erupted throughout the country, with frustrations about unemployment, crime, and poor service delivery frequently spilling over onto foreign nationals.
Mbalula, a former police minister, went on to accuse Pakistani nationals of being “the biggest loan sharks around. “They’ve got an open book and they loan you and your whole pension is going to the Pakistanis. You can even loan up to R500. Your whole pension is going to the Pakistanis every month,” he said.
The SAYEC event took place on the eve of nationwide commemorations of the Soweto Uprising. This year marks the 46th anniversary of the Soweto Uprising, an anti-apartheid uprising led by black students in Johannesburg’s Soweto township on June 16, 1976.
The protests turned deadly when apartheid police opened fire on the students, killing an estimated 174 people and injuring hundreds. They soon spread across South Africa, becoming one of the biggest acts of defiance against the apartheid system.
‘Reckless’ and ‘xenophobic’
Sharon Ekambaram, head of refugee and migrant rights programme at Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) had called Mbalula’s comments reckless and a result of political impunity enjoyed by leaders of the ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC).
“The South African Human Rights Commission issued findings from their investigations of xenophobia and made very clear recommendations to…