CAPE TOWN - Businesses have a key role to play in ensuring compliance with South Africa’s immigration and labour laws, according to Prof Thuli Madonsela.
She says employers must stop hiring undocumented immigrants and work with government to ensure immigration laws are enforced in an orderly, constitutional and humane manner.
Madonsela says businesses can no longer remain on the sidelines.
"They are part of the ecosystem," she said.
"We know that injustice anywhere causes chaos everywhere, and immigration is profit management."
According to Madonsela, South Africa’s failure to manage immigration effectively – both for the benefit of migrants and the country – has fuelled anxiety, placed pressure on communities and increased resentment.
She says this resentment has manifested in xenophobic sentiment, with businesses increasingly viewed as part of both the problem and the solution. She adds that businesses also have a responsibility to help rebuild township and village economies.
Madonsela argues that at the dawn of democracy, South Africa adopted a more libertarian than liberal approach, allowing excessive freedoms without sufficient regulation.
As a result, she says, township economies became saturated with large retailers, foreign-owned businesses and growing populations, placing additional pressure on services such as water, healthcare, schools and housing.
"Amongst other things, we still need to be kind to strangers among us, because we too were strangers once," she said.
While the principle of ubuntu calls on South Africans to care for one another, Madonsela says it must be balanced with effective governance.
Addressing the township economy, she notes that many township shops were originally established by local entrepreneurs but later struggled to compete with larger retailers and foreign-owned businesses.
She adds that the COVID-19 regulations further worsened the situation.
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Madonsela says that while businesses have a responsibility to help reduce xenophobic tensions, the state also has a duty to manage migration effectively, particularly unlawful migration.
She concludes that businesses should stop preferring foreign nationals over local workers, warning that such hiring practices contribute to growing resentment.