Foreigners in our town: Myburgh Foundation shows some compassion

The Myburgh Foundation recently went out of their way to assist foreigners who own shops and whose permits have expired to renew them online.

Founder and operations manager at the Myburgh Foundation, Randy Christian, explained that they visited the Randfontein CBD on Tuesday, February 1 where foreigners own shops and workplaces.

Our organisation started to assist refugees and asylum seekers whose asylum (section 22) and refugee (section 24) permits had expired during lockdown, and who needed to renew them via the Department of Home Affairs’ online platform.

“It forms part of our welfare and humanitarian activities which is listed under section 18A in Part ll of Schedule 9 of the Income Tax Act 58 of 1962,” Randy said.

According to Randy, this was purely to mitigate the number of undocumented foreign nationals within their district as well as to prevent them from falling victim to unethical law-enforcement officials, who frequently solicit bribes from those with expired permits.

“We are hoping this initiative will encourage those undocumented individuals to follow the proper route and get their documents in order legitimately.

We also encouraged foreign shop owners to adhere to the proper Covid-19 protocols as well as do regular inventory checks to ensure no expired food items are sold to the communities in which they operate.”

Randy added that this was the start of a few key programmes they had planned to improve conditions within the Rand West City Local Municipality.