Former South African President Thabo Mbeki has urged South Africans to focus on the root causes of the country’s economic challenges rather than blaming African migrants for problems such as unemployment and crime.
Speaking at the Thabo Mbeki Foundation and AUDA-NEPAD Business Breakfast, Mbeki argued that public frustration over economic hardship is increasingly being directed at foreign nationals, despite what he described as clear evidence that they are not responsible for South Africa’s structural difficulties.
His comments come amid renewed debate over immigration and the treatment of foreign nationals in South Africa, following anti-immigrant protests and the voluntary return of nearly 300 Ghanaians who cited growing fears about their safety.
Mbeki maintained that while South Africa faces serious challenges, including high unemployment and crime rates, migrants have become convenient targets for problems they did not create.
“We’ve got many problems here. The problem legitimately led to high levels of unemployment; that’s correct. High levels of crime, that’s correct. But the finger is being pointed at the wrong people,” Mbeki said.
He insisted that undocumented African migrants should not be held responsible for the country’s unemployment crisis.
“The levels of high unemployment in this country are not due. They are not due to undocumented Africans. They are not,” he stressed.
Tracing the origins of South Africa’s economic difficulties, Mbeki said the country’s declining growth trajectory began years before immigration became a major political issue.
“We know the history in detail of how South Africa, from 1994 to 2002, 2008, 2009, can’t go up like this. Growth rates reach 6% from 2009 onward, going in the opposite direction. It isn’t caused by undocumented immigrants.”
According to him, attention has shifted away from those genuinely responsible for the country’s economic decline.
“The people who cause that will look at it, that decline, they are laughing in a corner there, because we’re pointing not at them, but we’re pointing somewhere else is wrong,” he said.
Mbeki also suggested that migration into South Africa would remain a reality regardless of political rhetoric or public hostility.
“So, one prediction I will make is that the Africans will continue to come to South Africa. It doesn’t matter what you do,” he said.
Rather than treating migrants as scapegoats, he called for practical policies to manage migration while addressing the underlying factors driving unemployment and economic stagnation.
“You are not going to solve the problem of unemployment here by shouting against undocumented Africans and leaving the culprit,” he said.
“The culprits are sitting here. I can even tell you their names, but we’re pointing fingers at the wrong people.”
In a strongly worded critique of anti-immigrant sentiment, Mbeki said many South Africans were being misled into focusing on the wrong targets.
“What are we doing to say to the South Africans, the positions you are taking on this and that are wrong? Here is the truth: you are busy chasing after ghosts, and you are leaving this devil.”
He further called for a renewed appreciation of the historical ties between South Africa and the rest of the African continent, stressing that Africans share a common struggle and destiny.
“People are beating drums about the wrong people and failing to understand an organic connection between these Africans on the continent and these Africans here, because we’re together in the same struggle, you can’t certainly turn against them,” he said.
