South Africa’s Minister of Social Development Lindiwe Daphney Zulu has said neighbouring countries must appreciate that the South African economy is not doing well.
The 64-year-old dismissed claims that her Government is sending 180,000 Zimbabweans back home to starve in December, saying instead that the economic crisis facing the continent requires that each country takes care of its citizens.
Zulu, who is chairperson of the ANC’s international relations subcommittee, said this during a discussion on the party’s policy documents on Monday.
“We need other countries to help us deal with the issue of immigration and immigrants. We need them to also appreciate that we are also under extreme pressure, because the economy of our country is also not doing very well,” added Zulu, in a report carried by Jacaranda FM.
The discussion on international relations comes amid continued tensions between locals and foreign nationals, and the looming termination of the Zimbabwean exemption permit.
“When it comes to the issue of Home Affairs, and you were saying maybe we are sending Zimbabweans back to starve, as the African National Congress we believe that all countries need to take responsibility of their citizens.
“First and foremost, we take responsibility of our citizens, we make sure that despite the challenges that we have of poverty, unemployment and inequality, we shouldn’t be having South Africans leaving South Africa… leaving South Africa and going to neighbouring countries to go and look for greener pastures when they aren’t even that much of the greener pastures that we can talk about.”
Zulu said the policy conference will discuss the country’s immigration policies. She revealed that there are ongoing discussions between the ANC and Zimbabwe’s Zanu-PF in the run-up to the 2023 elections in Zimbabwe.
“So in our discussions with Zanu PF, we continue to engage with that to say let us all collectively create conducive environments for our people, so that when we have these people to people relationship.
“It’s going to be people to people without others feeling like they are being pinched, without feeling like we’ve got too many Zimbabweans here in the country, they should be in their home,” Zulu said.
The ANC discussion comes ahead of the party’s policy conference, which is set to be held in July.
