Schwartzerwitz: Joburg aims to integrate migrants

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Joburg aims to integrate migrants

A PROGRESSIVE strategy that ensures the integration of migrants in the city was being adopted by Johannesburg.

So said Executive Mayor Amos Masondo, speaking at the third Hague International Migration Workshop, at Constitution Hill on 13 August. Hosted by the City of Johannesburg, it brings together City officials, NGOs and governmental representatives to discuss ways of providing for the health and housing needs of migrants. The workshop opened on Wednesday and ends today.

Masondo said that in just under 24 months, the City had developed a support strategy for migrants.

"Local government in South Africa, including the City of Johannesburg, is committed to ensuring that all those who live within its jurisdiction and abide by its laws have a decent quality of life."

It was important that local governments focused on the challenges of migration and urban governance. "This should be so in spite of limited financial resources and sometimes even a limited management capacity," he said.

Housing and health

The number of people living in Joburg was expected to grow by some 3,5 million people in the next 25 years. South Africa's policy of migrant and refugee settlement and urban integration, rather than confinement to camps, meant that migrants competed within the generally overburdened urban housing market.

Masondo assured the gathering that the City of Johannesburg was striving to deal with its housing shortage.

"The City has embarked on a mixed-income housing programme to ensure integrated and inclusive human settlements. By the year 2011, the City would have built 50,000 houses for mixed-income groups."

In terms of health care, no formal documents would be required at clinics, resulting in free primary health care and environmental health services being available to all, he said.

Jobs

Professor Lorren Landau, the director of forced migration studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, pointed out that foreign nationals contributed to Johannesburg's economy.

"In our research, we have found that those international migrants are typically better educated and [are] likely to generate jobs for South Africans."

The challenge for the city was to rout out xenophobia, ignorance and other forms of discrimination in the public bureaucracy, the police and the private sector.

"If we are to build an inclusive and prosperous city, we must rethink how we engage with populations," he said.

- Joburg - a world class African city

No comments:

Post a Comment

Every Pogrom needs an Armband....

Welcome to Schwartzerwitz. The inevitable consequence of 4 million illegal immigrants arriving in South Africa. More desperate than our local folk they are willing to work longer harder faster for less. The immigrants are more reliable than South African unskilled labour and have outcompeted the local folk. No matter what anyone says it's not FAIR on our locals. Adding 4 million hungry mouths to the country has exacerbated the rocketing food prices felt across the globe. Adding 4 million potential electricity users to the mix has undoubtedly worsened the electricity situation. Having 4 million people send home money to their family drains the economy of money which should stay within the borders. Adding 4 million people and not registering them as taxpayers has cost the country billions. What chance does our government of ridding the country of shacks as per the Millennium Development Goal when 4 million immigrants build/rent shacks. Murambatsvina in Zimbabwe....? Just move to a shack in South Africa. On an individual basis this site condemns violent acts against individuals. However as a collective the illegal immigrants deserve no sympathy and should be deported back from whence they came. These people are economic refugees - "not real refugees" - and they are(generally speaking) in South Africa illegally.

kwerekwere.

The inside cover of my Oxford English dictionary features a word with which I have become all too familiar: the word is kwerekwere.

(It may be more familiar to you with one of its vernacular language–dependant prefixes prepended — the Sotho singular being le– and plural ma–, the Nguni singular being i– and plural ama–). This word is used to refer to black (in the morphological sense) Africans who are not South Africans — South African being defined as Sotho, Nguni, Venda and Tsonga ethnic groups (by that measure the Swazis, Batswana, etc. would be South African?). This word has a very negative sting to it and is often used with contempt. From what I gather it has undertones which speak of how black Africans are believed to be sub–human, too dark and have a pungent smell.