Des Erasmus
The Road Freight Association (RFA) has said that President Cyril Ramaphosa’s crackdown on employers hiring undocumented foreign nationals will have little effect in the sector unless government targets unregistered and non-compliant operators instead of repeatedly auditing companies already known to authorities.
RFA chief executive Gavin Kelly said on Tuesday that the association warned the Presidency in 2018 and 2022 about the employment of undocumented foreign nationals in the road freight and logistics industry, but very little had been done about it.
“A Presidential Task Team (involving the then Ministers of Police, Labour and Transport) was convened – which included representatives of the afore-mentioned departments, the ATDF-SA (the prime voice for previously – now unemployed – persons / citizens from the road freight and logistics sector, union representation and the registered employer organisations within the sector),” Kelly said in a statement.
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“The result was a 14-point plan being drafted. Years later – not much (well very little) progress has been made, resulting in the ATDF-SA leaving the Task Team (with continuous complaints that ‘government is not listening to them’). We have seen increasing frustration from their followers in the past few months.”
Kelly said the task team had since focused on training drivers, which was “never the intention of the Task Team – reskilling those who had lost their employment for re-appointment, perhaps – but not the training of ‘new’ drivers to fill the ‘jobs held by foreigners”.
In a national address earlier this month, Ramaphosa said that government would recruit 10,000 labour inspectors and increase penalties, including imprisonment, for employers violating the Immigration Act.
Kelly said the “widespread” use of foreign nationals in the sector was driven by weak enforcement of company registration requirements and poor inspection coverage.
He said there was also an absence of a requirement for freight operators to prove registration with the National Bargaining Council for the Road Freight and Logistics Industry when registering as operators.
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Without that, he said, non-compliant operators would continue to evade scrutiny while legitimate companies faced more audits.
“This will, in reality, have no real effect if the current status quo of inspections is maintained i.e. inspecting registered (known) companies that are (in the main) compliant,” Kelly said.
South Africa has been experiencing increased anti-foreigner sentiment over the past months as anti-illegal immigrant groups protest against the presence of illegal foreign nationals in the country, who they claim are “taking” the jobs of locals, and using taxpayer-funded public facilities.
Protests have been occurring on a weekly basis, with some of the anti-illegal immigrant “activists” – most notably March and March — rallying groups in the thousands for marches.
Some foreign nationals have been killed in the ensuing violence, and others have fled to what they deem safe places in cities and towns, seeking protection from police, local governments and their own governments. Scores have been repatriated since the protests flared-up.
The anti-illegal immigrant groups have set a 30 June “deadline” for undocumented foreign nationals to leave the country, or be forcibly expelled by locals.
At a press briefing on Monday, acting police minister Firoz Cachalia said security preparations for the protest action would cost in the region of R600 million. “That is what it costs when there are efforts to destabilise the country,” he said.
KwaZulu-Natal, the epicentre of the July 2021 civil unrest, has been identified as one of the potential hotspots for the protests, along with the Eastern Cape, Gauteng and the Western Cape. Cachalia said that while the right to protest was constitutional, it must be done within the confines of the law. He said protestors must march “unarmed”.
Kelly said legislation existed detailing when and why foreigners could be offered employment in the country, but it had to be applied “consistently” and “rigorously”.
He also cautioned against treating foreign drivers entering South Africa in foreign-registered vehicles in the same way as undocumented workers employed inside the country.
“Foreign drivers of foreign vehicles are generally not problematic (they are employed outside of the country),” he said.
He said the issue was not a call to remove all foreign nationals, but to ensure fair and lawful recruitment.
“It’s about following the rules. Applying the rules. Making the process just, fair and consistent.”
