Staff Reporter
President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Friday that South Africans were “deeply concerned and ashamed” that foreign nationals had been subjected to discrimination and ill-treatment in the country.
He said the Southern African region could not achieve meaningful integration while people were subjected to intimidation because they were “regarded as outsiders”.
Ramaphosa made the remarks while delivering the keynote address at a public lecture at the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Westville campus in Durban, ahead of the 46th SADC Summit.
“We cannot submit to intimidation and harassment of people seen as coming from elsewhere,” Ramaphosa said.
“As South Africans, we are deeply concerned and ashamed that nationals from other countries have in recent months been subjected to discrimination and ill-treatment.
“The criminal actions of a few within our communities are a repudiation of the solidarity upon which this community was founded.
The president’s comments come amid an increase in anti-immigrant sentiment in South Africa, particularly towards undocumented foreign nationals, with groups including March and March and Operation Dudula organising protests and campaigns demanding tougher immigration enforcement.
March and March, which staged nationwide demonstrations on 30 June against illegal foreign nationals, has said it intends to hold protests every week, while subsequent actions have included protesters going door-to-door in parts of Johannesburg looking for suspected undocumented migrants.
Protesters have blamed foreign nationals for unemployment, pressure on public services and crime.
In his speech, Ramaphosa said migration was a “broader challenge” that SADC countries needed to confront collectively.
“Southern Africa has borne witness to the movement of people over millennia. Our people are the product of migration. Migration accounts for much of the diversity, vibrancy and richness of this region,” he said.
He said Southern Africa should work towards a region in which people could move freely “according to established laws and protocols”.
“This means that we must work together to address the conditions that drive migration,” he said.
“We seek a region where people move out of choice, not out of desperation,” he said.
Ramaphosa also used the lecture, titled “Translating SADC Vision 2050 into Action: Pathways Towards Solidarity, Equality and Shared Prosperity”, to call for deeper economic integration and greater regional self-reliance at a time of growing instability in the global economy.
He said trade among SADC states accounted for just under a quarter of their combined total trade, despite the region possessing the energy, agricultural resources, minerals, technology and financial institutions needed to supply far more of its own requirements.
He said that reliance on distant markets left Southern African economies vulnerable to decisions over which they had little control.
“Access to a distant market, however valuable, is a borrowed advantage,” he said.
“This access may be extended and it may be withdrawn. Decisions are often taken in capitals far away, where our businesses have no say and our workers have no vote.
“A regional market is different. A regional market is an advantage that we ourselves own. Others cannot take it away from us.”
International Relations and Cooperation Minister Ronald Lamola, who introduced Ramaphosa, said during his speech that increasing geopolitical rivalry, economic nationalism and competition for Africa’s resources strengthened the case for greater regional cooperation.
“The world is undergoing significant transformation. Great power competition is intensifying. Advanced economies are turning inward,” Lamola said.
“Trade is weaponised to punish countries that don’t toe the line. Competition for Africa’s mineral wealth is prompting talk of another scramble for Africa.”
Ramaphosa said Southern Africa needed to stop exporting its critical minerals in raw form while importing the higher-value products manufactured from them.
“We export the ore and we import the battery,” he said.
“We supply an industrial revolution taking place somewhere else and we then purchase its products at a price set by others.
“We need to use our own resources to drive our own industrial revolution.”
He called for greater investment in refining and smelting, electricity generation and transmission, cross-border water projects, roads, railways and ports.
He said the region should mobilise more of its own capital through the SADC Regional Development Fund.
Ramaphosa also called for greater regional production of pharmaceuticals, saying Southern Africa could not remain heavily dependent on imports for medicines and other health products.
“We can no longer accept that we import almost everything that heals us,” he said.
“Our answer must be health sovereignty, pursued in line with the Lusaka Agenda on global health initiatives.”
He said that there were similar patterns in the digital economy, where data generated in Southern Africa was increasingly being processed elsewhere before being sold back to the region as services.
“Already, we are exporting data and importing intelligence,” Ramaphosa said.
He said youth unemployment was a major threat to SADC’s long-term stability.
“Youth unemployment is one of the gravest threats to the stability, cohesion and progress of every country in our community,” he said.
“And it is one of the foremost obstacles to the realisation of Vision 2050.”
He said SADC’s ambitions for economic transformation also depended on peace and political stability, describing the conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo as “the gravest test of our collective resolve” and calling for continued efforts towards a peaceful settlement.
Ramaphosa said SADC’s Vision 2050 could not remain merely an aspirational document.
“Vision 2050 must be more than a statement of intent. It must become a programme of action,” he said.
“Above all, it must produce results that can be seen and felt in the lives of our people.”
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