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Advocacy & campaigns

Mangaung municipality must be held responsible for flames of xenophobia in Botshabelo

Democratic Left Front and Botshabelo Unemployed Movement joint press statement

2012-07-05, Issue 592

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/83365

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02 July 2012 - The Botshabelo Unemployed Movement (BUM) and the Democratic Left Front (DLF) call on informal traders in Botshabelo not to use foreign traders in the township as a scapegoat for their anger at the attacks they have faced from the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality last week and their dire economic circumstances. The BUM and the DLF regret last week’s outbreak of xenophobic violence in Botshabelo. The BUM and the DLF call on informal traders and all unemployed people to desist from continued attacks against foreign traders in Botshabelo.

Rather, Botshabelo informal traders and other unemployed people must direct their anger at the Mangaung municipality. We call for sustained mass action to expose failed service delivery, corruption and how the municipality’s policies maintain apartheid geographies and continue the systemic marginalisation of the unemployed. The BUM is now undertaking local mobilisation and public education against xenophobia in Botshabelo.

The BUM and the DLF condemn the Mangaung municipality for its attack on informal traders. This attack amounted to the municipality destroying wares sold by local traders as it removed them from the Fourways Mall in Botshabelo. This was ostensibly in the interests of public order and health. In this regard, the BUM and the DLF reject the flawed logic of the Mangaung municipality. Informal traders play a crucial role in building some semblance of a local economy from which they eke out a dire living for their families. What informal traders require from the municipality are fiscal resources and appropriate policies that can effectively support and grow their economic activities. Instead, the municipality subjects informal traders to stigmatisation, ridicule and the violations of their basic human rights. The same municipality would not dare to break into an illegal shop run by a local white person in the centre of Bloemfontein.

The BUM is actively mobilising the unemployed in Botshabelo in support of the demand for the Right to Work to be constitutionalised. Concretely, this must mean that every unemployed person must get guaranteed work, income and skills training for a minimum number of days per year. There is enough public work to provide such guaranteed employment to the large numbers of the unemployed. Such public work includes housing construction, plumbing, electrical work, mechanical work, cleaning and maintenance of public facilities, road construction and maintenance, food gardens and preparation for schools and crèches, the separation and recycling of waste, agri-processing, and so on. In addition, our long-term campaign against unemployment in Botshabelo also requires the municipality to scale up the conversion of homes, public buildings and commercial buildings so that they use less energy and water so that a local renewables industry can develop. It is only such systemic change in the local economy that can effectively deal with xenophobia.

ENDS

(The BUM is an affiliate of the DLF).

FOR COMMENTS, CONTACT:

- Khokhoma Motsi (BUM & DLF), 073 490 7623
- Mazibuko K. Jara (DLF), 083 651 0271

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