Nxesi responds to truck drivers on hiring of foreigners.
Employment and Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi says his ministry disagrees with truck drivers on the hiring of foreigners in the freight industry.
Nxesi also said refugees have a right to employment in South Africa.
He was speaking to eNCA in response to a protest by truck drivers who are against the hiring of foreign nationals in the freight industry.
Nxesi said South Africa has international and regional obligations. He also said South Africa has to find a balance between national laws and international agreements. Nxesi said:
I think you must remember that South Africa is part of the wider economic networks the AU and particularly SADC in which we seek to expand trade and economic activity. Therefore, we cannot just quarantine ourselves from the rest of the continent and the economic development of the country has always sourced labour from the wider pool and South Africa is also a signatory to a number of international treaties and in the ILO and a number of conventions, we have to honour those. And giving sanctuary and the rights of the refugees. That’s not going to change but in some sectors, we also seek to attract the scarce skills. That does not apply to the road freight sector. And our aim here is to manage the use of the foreigners and to provide opportunities to the local drivers and to enforce decent standards.
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He then went on to say that refugees have the right to employment in South Africa. Nxesi said the country cannot just do away with foreigners. “And remember that we can’t just do away with these foreigners, some of them are refugees and legally they are supposed to be there. The issue we have to deal with is the illegal people who have been employed without any papers from Home Affairs,” he said.
When asked if the law gives locals preference over foreigners in industries that are not specialised Nxesi said, “Definitely it says that. But these guys are not talking about locals preference they say no foreigners in total and we disagree with that. Those who are refugees they have rights in this particular country to employment and so on and these are the issues we are dealing with. What we are saying now, our law we need to be specific in terms of the regulations and say in this sector it might not be necessary to employ any foreigner. In other sectors we might open and if you open the ratios must be like that or we put this particular ratio. That is the debate that we are having.”
Read: Video: Foreign truck driver runs for life after being stopped by South Africans