Employment, not politics, must be our priority in South Africa

80 years later, we need to follow France

International anti-Israeli sentiment is understandable but misplaced. It’s like being anti-American because of Donald Trump.

The sitting Israeli Knesset is the elephant in the room, not the Israeli people per se. The mayhem in Gaza is driven by a rightwing-led government with a mere 3% majority.

The Times of Israel reports that a recent poll indicates that 70% of Israelis don’t trust their government. When the dust settles and the destruction of Gaza ceases, the existing Knesset will go up in smoke and blow away in the wind.

The new Knesset will accept that the only way forward isn’t the destruction of Hamas, but talks resulting in the formation of the State of Palestine alongside the State of Israel .Those calling for the destruction of Israel are wasting their efforts. An attack on Israel would be like throwing stones at Table Mountain.

They need to live with that – that’s just the way it is.

French President Emmanuel Macron breaking ranks with Western allies by recognising the State of Palestine is a milestone, which, hopefully, others will follow – it is after all almost 80 years overdue! | Colin Bosman Newlands

Racism will never end unless confronted

Why is it so hard for people to stand up to, or act against, racism, discrimination, violent crime, social injustice, and rampant corruption in their local communities and /or countries of birth or countries they have migrated to?Does it inconvenience them or cost them anything to do so?

In America for instance, it is said that among white people, solidarity involves an unspoken agreement to protect their advantages and avoid discomfort by not confronting racist behaviour.

Correspondingly, for people of colour in the US, seeing racism happening in real time also leans to silence out of fear of reprisal.

In both these cases of white and black Americans it is generally acknowledged that these dynamics create critical barriers to bringing about change to racist and socially oppressive systems. | Eric Palm Gympie, Australia

We sit on a powder keg of unemployment

Our embattled nation is hurtling from crisis to crisis as we wage a losing battle to contain a vast amount of poverty.

Corruption land has reached epidemic proportions and is so pervasive that it is destroying the future of this and the next generation.

The corruption epidemic is evident in the general climate of unethical leadership and bad governance throughout the political spectrum.

After 30 years of democracy, our rich country remains a land of peasants, and increasingly of landless urbanised populations living on the margins of squalid squatter camps that are bursting at the seams – political dynamite waiting to explode in a seismic eruption.

Our silent emergency comes in the form of pernicious killers: Poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy and massive unemployment.

Statistics do not capture the extent of human suffering and lost opportunities. When democracy dawned in 1994, many hoped for liberty, prosperity and a fresh new start, but were cruelly disappointed. This is unacceptable and untenable.

South Africa is a powder keg, waiting to explode and vision, foresight and courage is urgently required to forestall cataclysmic events | FAROUK ARAIE Benoni

Employment must be our top priority

Last Monday (July 21), Independent Newspapers reported on the horrific reality of youth unemployment.

The report reflected that more than a million young South Africans had applied for the police service learning programme. Even more shocking was that over three hundred thousand of those graduates had NQF Level 6 or higher qualifications. The situation is now so bad that six in 10 of our youth are unemployed. These numbers are not just statistics. They are basically almost every family.

Despite these stark figures we still have the government putting enormous restrictions on job creation. We constantly see how small businesses are blocked from their very survival because of regulations and harsh restrictions. The labour ministry seems hell bent on trying to control who can be employed and where.

We have archaic regulations controlling the employment of people with certain skin pigmentation. We also have legislation telling employers how much they must pay for certain jobs. If the employer can’t afford that they are told to apply for an exemption.

These are almost impossible to obtain and the few that do get exemptions from the minimum wage in certain categories, that exemption is for only a short period of time and only in very limited circumstances.

Even the few exemptions that are obtained don’t go far enough, despite the fact that the individuals would rather earn a lower amount than no salary.

These individuals are not entitled to agree to take the lower amount. Their only other alternative is to resort to crime, drugs, or nothing but despair.

Such circumstances tend to lead to some employers breaking the law and to many employees being complicit in breaching the rules and regulations. In many circumstances in my daily dealing with trade unions even they are willing to overlook these breaches.

In my travels across South Africa, I speak to shop stewards who tell me they would rather have their members employed than to strictly enforce the minimum wage.

Unfortunately, when an employer breaches one piece of legislation, we invariably see that this leads to other unlawful behaviour. For instance, if an employer is forced to ignore the minimum wage legislation they then feel complete indifference to health and safety regulations. This one wrong leads to many others.

To top all of this, we have too few inspectors and the ones that we do have are not properly resourced.

When we read about an inspection blitz this normally targets larger businesses in city centres and never reaches informal businesses.

Of course, this also leads to businesses rather employing foreign nationals who have no papers at all. Because of the precarious situation that these foreigners find themselves in, we see silence from those individuals who are earning a pittance.

This situation in turn leads to xenophobic reaction from South Africans who can’t find jobs. Xenophobia is encouraged by community leaders and to a large degree some of the political parties.

Instead of the government going all out to tackle unemployment they often find various ministries using foreign labour as the scapegoat.

There is, however, light at the end of the tunnel. We are seeing fantastic news come out of our Home Affairs Department where they are encouraging and targeting certain industries to create jobs. Specific visas and a helping hand in the film industry is one such example.

Another is where Minister Dean Macpherson has entered into agreements across the board including with foreign governments to engender job creation in the building industry.

We’ve seen the Department of Agriculture doing everything necessary to ensure that our fresh produce is exported to other jurisdictions, despite the American tariffs.

It is also extremely pleasing to see enormous efforts being driven in the Western Cape in the call centre industry including all types of beneficiation of our local goods.

The Government of National Unity, although under threat, has at least given our economy a boost.

Foreigners have been pouring money into various industries around the country. Organisations, such as the Federated Hospitality Association of Southern Africa, have stepped forward and applauded the introduction of two new visa categories. Our conferences and exhibitions sector are growing at an amazing pace.

Our people are innovative and for the first time in many years I’m noticing small manufacturing businesses opening up. As the world stage becomes more and more complicated, our consumers are once again turning to home grown manufacture.

All of us can play a part in buying South African-made goods and supporting local industry. It is always refreshing to see labels on goods stating, “Made in South Africa!” | MICHAEL BAGRAIM Cape Town

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