SA Minister Warns Farmers Against Hiring Illegal Zimbabwean Workers For Safety Reasons

South Africa’s Minister of Police Fikile Mbalula has warned local farmers not to hire illegal immigrants as a source of cheap labour, saying that this posed a security risk. The minister went on to say in the event that the workers turned on their employers and killed them, the South African Police Service (SAPS) had no means of tracking the undocumented workers.

Responding to questions from an opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) official during the release of annual crime statistics to parliament Mbalula said:

It’s true that there are criminals who stealing from farms, undermining farmers work and that.

But equally there are farmers, who are wrong, because they employ people from Zimbabwe as cheap labour and exploit them, and then those people turn against them and kill them and then it becomes a safety question.

So, I am saying to the farmers as I have met with them, stop that. Help me to ensure compliance, working with the department of labour.

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Don’t employ unregistered, undocumented foreigners in our country and when they turn against you blame SAPS. We’ve got nowhere to find such people.

Mbalula once sparked a diplomatic tiff when he claimed that Zimbabwean soldiers were deserting the military to commit crimes in South Africa. Back in April, Mbalula said:

There are people who come here from Zimbabwe, and they cross the line here. They run away from the military in Zimbabwe and they come here and promote criminality here in South Africa.

There are Zimbabwean ex-soldiers who are in this country, robbing banks and promoting criminality. They are running away from uncle Bob (President Robert Mugabe) there.

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