Johannesburg – ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba says the government has failed to reverse the damage caused by apartheid-era discriminatory practices, with half of the adult population living below the poverty line and 39.7% of working-age South Africans being unemployed.
He has called this a national crisis, and urgent action is non-negotiable.
“When I grew up, people who did not work were those who did not want to work. When I was 16, 17 and 18 at high school, including universities, we would get temporary jobs over the weekends and school holidays,” he said.
According to Mashaba, South Africa was short of labour at the time, so the apartheid government arrested people for not working.
“They used to give us this brown ID called a reference book. They will come into our communities and arrest those who did not want to work. They were forcing us to work,” said Mashaba.
He juxtaposed this to the current employment situation, where the majority of youth in the country are unemployed.
“Twelve million South Africans today are unemployed and, to make matters worse, with our people not working they open our borders to everyone and say it’s a free-for-all. We are the only country in the world where you talk about the borders of the country and the sovereignty of the country and you get criticised. You get called names, you get insulted," Mashaba added.
He said South Africa was part of the continent but should remain a sovereign state.
“We have 12 million of our own people unemployed. We are not going to solve other countries’ problems until such time that our people have their dignity and they get employment opportunities,” he said.
The Star