The elements of xenophobia must be dealt with first – Cosatu

LIMPOPO – IF THE government wants to properly address xenophobia in the country, it should first deal with the elements that lead to it, according to Bheki Ntshalintshali, the acting general secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu).

“Cosatu fully supports the statement of the alliance…let’s calm down…let’s forget the foreigners.

“But there’s a bigger question that we should address in South Africa. As long as the other African nationals continue moving from their countries to compete here in South Africa we have a problem,” he said during a Workers’ Day celebration at the Malamulele stadium on Friday.

“I walked about the town here (Malamulele) this morning. As we walked about somebody came and said look at these shops; no South Africans own any of them… and this is a problem, no matter how diplomatic we are about it,” he said.

He went on to say that the government needed to address the situation and ensure that locals benefited from profits made by businesses that were owned by foreigners.

“We need to address the township economy. Those people who are taking money from South Africans: we must have some share in it,” he said. Ntshalintshali also touched on racism in the country saying the country was not united in terms of racial groupings, and that this was apparent in many areas.

“We cannot celebrate April 27 (Freedom Day) because if you look at the gathering, it’s all black, and when Bafana Bafana plays spectators are blacks, but when you go to the rugby the next day and you look at the audience, it’s white,” he said urging the communities to practise the issue of rainbow nation.

Jessie Duarte, ANC deputy general secretary, who spoke before Ntshalintshali, tried to quell the notion that Cosatu was not independent and was working towards achieving the ANC’s interests.

“There’s nothing in the ANC policy documents or any statement where we ever talked about the trade union federation being a labour gate of the ANC. You can go back through the history of the ANC,” she said.

“It’s not our intention to compromise its independence because Cosatu as the fighting force of the working class and organised labour must be independent so it is able to tackle anyone on the issues that matters to the workers,” she added.

However, she also said the ANC had plans to strengthen its relationship with Cosatu. “As the alliance secretariat we took the bold decision that every ANC branch has to become part of the mobilisation of workers into Cosatu,” she explained.

“This must also apply to the South African National Civic Organisation; it’s no use for us to have a good relationship at a provincial and national level whereas the alliance is not live at a community level, so the time has come for us to through away any differences we might think we have,” she said.