ATM President Vuyo Zungula.
THE campaign to criminalise South African employers who hire undocumented foreign workers, championed most visibly by ATM President Vuyo Zungula, proves, and I say this with the utmost respect, why politicians should not be entrusted with economic decisions, and here is why.
There is a deeply troubling spectacle unfolding in South Africa’s political discourse, and it has found its most vivid expression in the parliamentary “interventions” of the ATM President.
From the security of a seat in the National Assembly, drawing a salary funded by the very taxpayers and business owners he now aggressively targets, Zungula has made it his mission to demand that employers who hire undocumented foreign nationals be charged with criminal offences.
His latest effort, a parliamentary question to Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber, extracted figures that on the surface appear to validate his crusade: Over the past five financial years, 8 180 employers have been charged for hiring undocumented foreign nationals, 6 279 workplace inspections have been conducted, and 109 735 undocumented foreign nationals have been arrested and deported.
