JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) on Monday condemned the recent xenophobic attacks against fellow Africans.
“South Africans need to realise that no amount of attacks on our neighbours will change our economic situation. We need to work together to better the economic situation in our country,” the union said in a media release.
It added that the economy’s informal small and medium-sized enterprise (SMME) sector was unregulated and had a low tax base, which was exploited by people with start-up capital.
“We call on government to regulate this sector and to avail start-up capital to [local] potential SMME entrepreneurs,” it added in a statement.
AMCU further called on government to “scrap all apartheid economic policies in our country.”
“We believe that progressive economic policies that favour the poor and the working class culminating in employment opportunities informed by a wage led economy will bring about equality and economic stability that our people are desperate for,” it noted.
It also called upon the South African Development Community (SADC) and the African Union to follow suit and grow the economy for the benefit of the entire continent.
Chamber of Mines president Mike Teke on Friday said the South African mining industry had developed as a result of the work of skilled and unskilled citizens from the SADC and other countries.
“We are deeply embarrassed, as the leadership of the mining industry, that, as a nation, we can resort to such barbaric acts, given the history of discrimination and segregation that we as South Africans come from.
“We urge our fellow compatriots to express their valid concerns using the marvellous and functioning institutions that our government has put in place to deal with citizens’ complaints,” he added.