By Naadiya Adams

Foreign nationals working in South Africa’s trucking industry have been under siege for many years, but recently tensions have risen and violence is becoming a norm.

Last year saw several people killed, highways blockaded and trucks set alight, prompting government to look at legislation reform.

Now, the Employment and Labour Department says it has concluded the draft National Labour Migration Policy. The legislation is set to introduce new quotas on the number of foreign nationals that can legally be employed across sectors of the economy.

As the government tries to take control of the situation, foreign nationals are not backing down, they announced a planned stay-away this week to protest the attacks that have taken place consistently against them in recent years.

In an interview with Radio Islam, CEO of the Road Freight Association, Gavin Kelly says so far, there have been no reports of violence this week.

“We have heard that some of the foreign nationals are just staying at home so they not reporting for duty, but at this stage, thank goodness, there has been no violence and there does not seem to have been much disruption at all,” explained Kelly.

Kelly says the first step in alleviating the problems in the industry is to curb illegal immigrants coming in.

“The first attempt in this legislation is to correct some of the things that have been going wrong over the past decade or so, which is that people have been able to get into the country and find employment without having the correct grounding,” says Kelly.

Kelly says these foreigners have the opportunity to find employment here in South Africa whether or not they are legal and one job taken by an illegal immigrant is one job less for a South African or legal migrant.

According to Kelly one of the biggest loopholes around migration legislation lies in the laws concerning refugees where a refugee seeking asylum is allowed to legally find employment, he says it’s the gap they are seeking to close with new legislation.

Once the new laws are enacted, Kelly says the illegal foreign nationals currently in the system will need to be moved out systematically.