Andrew Stegmann

Home Affairs monitoring Beitbridge tension

Pretoria – The home affairs department is monitoring the situation at the Beitbridge port of entry between South Africa and Zimbabwe following violent disruptions on Friday.

“Following the resolution of the standoff between South African traders in the Musina area and Zimbabweans entering South Africa we can confirm that the port of entry is operational today [Saturday] and no incidences have been reported,” the department said in a statement.

“Working together with the South African Police Service (SAPS) and the South African Revenue Service (SARS) we will observe developments closely to ensure ease of travel at the port of entry.

“To this end, we wish to confirm that the violent acts that have been portrayed on social media, including the burning of buildings, took place on the Zimbabwean side and not alongside the borderline as reported,” the department said.

It was reported earlier that protesters torched a section of the border warehouse in Beitbridge on Friday as they demonstrated against the Zimbabwean government’s decision to “ban” most imports and promote locally-manufactured products.

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Andrew Stegmann

Home Affairs looking at refugees in a new light

Our most frequent visitors are from neighbours in Africa; our migration policies still favour former colonial powers; thousands try for refugee status here but few get it; and business migrants are increasingly coming from China.

The Ministry of Home Affairs has just released the Green Paper on International Migration.

Last week, Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba talked of the importance of migration policy against the background of strains in the EU over immigration issues and the Brexit episode, the ongoing move of migrants from Africa to Europe, and the importance of the money that migrants send home.

“South Africa has become a major source, transit and destination country for mixed-migration flows which need to be managed more robustly if the process is to have clear and tangible benefits for the country in terms of economic development, social cohesion as well as security,” said Gigaba.

“National thinking and attitudes to international migration are currently influenced by an unproductive debate between those who call for stricter immigration controls and those who call for controls to be wholesale relaxed.

 “The discourse is in general characterised by strong emotions, stereotypes, unreliable anecdotes and contested statistics,” he added, calling for discussions that would “help us move past these simplistic, inaccurate and unhelpful ways of thinking”.
Andrew Stegmann

South Africa’s Job bloodbath will continue- Cosatu

More people lost their jobs in South Africa the first quarter of the year, latest figures have revealed and this is likely to put pressure on the ruling ANC ahead of August’s local elections.

According to the country’s Quarterly Employment Survey released on Monday, 15 000 were lost.

The Confederation of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) said while it was not surprised by what it called a “bloodbath”, there was need for a “jobs summit”.

We think it is going to get worse

“We need an emergency job summit to really reflect what this means for the economy going forward, we need a unique South African development model and look at what is wrong with our economy and how we can all work together,” COSATU’s Sizwe Pamla said, adding they were “no longer shocked” by such statistics.

“We need to stop jobs bloodbath. We are not going to have solution to the job losses if we go back to our own corners and the government is simply playing a neutral role.”

Pamla said the labour organisation wanted the government to be more decisive in dealing with unemployment.

“We think it is going to get worse, people are just not applying their minds on what is needed in the country,” he said.

Statistician-General, Pali Lehohla’s latest figures showed that the largest percentage of job losses was in the retail, hotel and restaurant sector.

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Andrew Stegmann

SITUATION REPORT: PERSISTENT MILITANT ACTIVITY IN NIGERIA’S NIGER DELTA

According to reports released on 3 July, the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) militant group has claimed a number of attacks on oil infrastructure in Nigeria’s southern Delta state in recent days. The group bombed a Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) crude pipeline near Warri, on 1 July. The group also claimed two bombings on Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) crude oil pipelines near Batan, on 2 July. Two further bombings were claimed by the group on 3 July, when two oil wells operated by Chevron were targeted.

Meanwhile, a number of other militant groups have threatened to conduct attacks targeting oil infrastructure in the Niger Delta region recently, including the Niger Delta Volunteers (NDV) and the Asawana Deadly Force of Niger Delta (ADFND). The NDV is believed to have an operational presence in the oil-rich Akwa Ibom state, where it claimed the 16 June bombing of an NNPC pipeline in Ikot Abasi.

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