It’s not our job to keep illegal citizens from working in SA, it’s government’s

I once watched a great satirical news film called The Onion (based on the publication), which reported the American plan to tackle obesity – a plan that simply consisted of adjusting the definition of obesity from 65% body fat to 90%.

This sounds remarkably similar to our matric pass strategy in reality, but could also be a new method of skirting results.

As we come to the end of the Zimbabwean Exemption Permit timeline and get increased threats by the government regarding employing illegal foreigners, we have to ask, “but what have you done?”

It’s not like illegal foreigners received invitations for which they had to RSVP. It’s not like the private sector can control the porous borders.

Anybody who even tries will probably be labelled a xenophobe and anti-African. Oh, and the matter of a typical asylum seeker being stuck in the process for a decade, possibly longer if they carry cash, is not the fault of the private sector either.

The capacity for accommodating illegal foreigners in South Africa is primarily constructed by our lacklustre state and yet it now falls on employers to report them? In isolation, that makes sense.

Yes, don’t hire anybody without the right to work in South Africa (one of the few rights that does not extend universally to non-citizens). In context, however, where is the state taking any responsibility or accountability?

Imagine scenario A: you hire an illegal foreigner and don’t report it. You’ll get charged. Not lekker.

Surely scenario B should be more lekker. Let’s see. You report an illegal foreigner who applies for a job, the police take 17 days to get back to you. When it finally gets to court, it’s postponed three times before you have to give evidence 10 months later.

A while later, you find out that the docket has gone missing and the charges have been dropped.

In the meantime, the accused has found out that you snitched on them and a community is out to get you. That doesn’t sound too lekker either, especially because you’re not the one who accommodated them coming here in the first place, yet you’re put in this position with no lekker outcomes.

In the meantime, the government sits with its hands in the air claiming it’s done its part, half by outsourcing to the private sector and half by discontinuing the authorisation of 200 000 people to be in the country through the Zimbabwe Extension Permit.

ALSO READ: Zimbabwe Exemption Permit saga: Government faces legal challenge

Anybody want to take bets on how many of those will actually return?

Regardless, there’s no real plan to deal with the backlog in the asylum seeker process, the appeals associated with it and, of course, the industry of corruption surrounding it.

There is also no real plan to shore up the borders, and why would there be? It’s not like that’s a priority or anything, if the plan is to catch illegal foreigners by means of lacking work permits.

The state’s plan is tantamount to draining rice through a colander, catching the water, and placing it back in the rice to serve.

It’s not surprising coming from the same people who believe that fixing potholes amounts to simply filling them in with sand.

Yeah, cool… There’s no longer an immediate issue, yet nobody is asking when the road was built, whether it conformed to any standards, or whether we even have such standards, and of course, how much and who was paid to build it or whether they should be paid to build another road again.

National issues are not simply a matter of cheap policy.

One actually needs to look towards some sort of end game. If that end game is to keep illegal immigrants out of South Africa, don’t be surprised when these threats and visa suspensions amount to very little.

NOW READ: Government’s zama zama plan lacking, making scapegoats of foreigners