Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba will seek a meeting with Johannesburg Mayor Herman Mashaba over remarks attributed to him labelling foreign nationals as criminals.
"Minister Gigaba views the comments as unfortunate and will brief the Mayor on government's policy and interventions in relation to the management of international migration‚" his office said in a statement on Monday.
"The Minister has repeatedly called on all leaders irrespective of their political allegiance to desist from making statements that could influence the public to adopt xenophobic attitudes. "All of us have the responsibility to act in a manner that does not incite any hatred towards other fellow human beings irrespective of where they come from. I will seek a meeting with the Mayor precisely to brief him on a number of interventions that government has implemented in this regard‚" said Minister Gigaba.
The Sowetan newspaper reported last week that Mashaba told a media conference in Johannesburg that foreign immigrants were here illegally.
Mashaba said he knew he had constraints as local government because the national government had opened borders to criminals‚ but the Democratic Alliance would change all that when it takes over national government in 2019. "But in the meantime I have already started engaging embassies in our country for them to know their residents in our city are here criminally.
"We will engage the provincial and national government to help us in this regard but I don't believe anyone can expect us to tolerate activities of criminality."
King Goodwill Zwelithini was taken to the SA Human Rights Commission for similar comments after he had accused the government of failing to protect locals from the "influx of foreign nationals".
The Human Rights Commission found him not guilty of hate speech. At the time the DA attacked the king‚ saying his comments were highly irresponsible.
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