Housing assembly activist Kenneth Matlawe has dismissed calls by anti-illegal immigration group March and March for undocumented migrants to return to their home countries and fix the problems there.
Matlawe made the comments during a meeting at Community House in Salt River, Cape Town.
The Housing Assembly, African Inclusion Coalition and civic organisation Siyafana Sonke met to plan an anti-xenophobia mobilisation campaign.
“If we are saying that those countries must be fixed, why are we not starting to say that what is the hand of South Africa in the underdevelopment of these countries? Because South Africa is part of the BRICS bank. South Africa is a president of SADC. So why is South Africa not intervening you are sitting on the African parliament, go there and fix,” said Matlawe.
Matlawe said South African-born corporations are extracting wealth from other African countries, and migrants coming to South Africa are simply following the money.
“MTN is a South African multinational company because it’s also in other African countries. So now when there’s people who are displaced by the land that MTN now has businesses built on in whatever country is outside of South Africa, those people who got displaced, if they run after the money, the same money that displaced them, they will come directly to South Africa,” said Matlawe.