Johannesburg - ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba has vowed to never stop fighting for better border controls in South Africa, saying his party is unapologetic about it.
Mashaba who is a mayoral candidate for the City of Joburg was speaking in a radio interview on Tuesday.
Mashaba said when it came to controlled borders, as ActionSA they were unapologetic about it.
“Like all civilised countries, no country has an open border policy. We need to invite the people of the world to come to South Africa because the country was built on the back of migrants. Us as ActionSA we are committed to this project of getting people of the world to come, but however they must come here legally. When they are here they must respect our laws,” said Mashaba.
He said those who are here for criminal intent, must go.
“In all the municipalities we are going to govern we are going to ensure that within the metro police we have special units that are going to work with Home Affairs Department, even if it means that we’ve got to be in court every day getting Home Affairs to discharge their responsibility to protect the sovereignty of of our country,” he said.
Mashaba said it was mischievous for anyone to think he only targeted African immigrants.
He said he resigned from his position of mayor of Joburg on October 21, 2019 and the next day he had a meeting with the portfolio committee on home affairs.
“I think at this point this notion of saying I am targeting Africans is not true. While in office when I discovered human trafficking which was happening in the city of Joburg by international criminals and when I went deep into this and I said this is not going to happen in my name, I raised it and all of a sudden some people working with the ANC started thinking they could attack me.
“Fortunate enough I am a human being with a conscience, there was no way I can allow modern day slavery to allow South Africa to be a dumping place of expired or counterfeit goods or allow South Africa to be destroyed by drugs. Those who have been attacking me please carry on because I am not distracted,” Mashaba said.
ActionSA is contesting elections in four metros and two smaller municipalities in the upcoming local government elections, namely Joburg, Ekurhuleni, Tshwane, eThekwini, KwaDukuza and Newcastle.