- Foreign shop owners have taken Kgoshi Letsiri Phaahla to court over his order to leave Ga Phaahla village in Limpopo.
- Phaahla blames a Constitutional Court ruling and warns of uprisings. Home Affairs denies the ruling legalises all undocumented foreign nationals.
Foreign shop owners have taken Kgoshi Letsiri Phaahla to court over his order for them to leave Ga Phaahla village in Limpopo. The application was filed on Thursday morning. It is set to be heard in the Sekhukhune Magistrate’s Court on 27 November.
The shop owners want to stop his plan to remove their businesses from the village. Phaahla gave the order at the start of this month.
Phaahla leads the Phaahla Makadikwe Traditional Council. He resigned as Limpopo chairperson of the Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa in August 2022, after publicly joining ActionSA.
“We have a constitution in South Africa that does not serve the interest of its citizens. That constitution gave right to the Constitutional Court which lately ruled in favour of illegal immigrants to apply whatever they want to apply. But one question remains, are these people feeling what people on the ground are feeling? Or is it because the judges and whoever politicians, high profile ones, live in high security estates, they don’t feel a pinch about the impact of illegal immigrants on ordinary South Africans.
“Are they doing all this in the interest of us as South Africans or are they trying to please the global players who at the most are always praising something that is not impacting on them and fooling South African authorities that you guys have a world class constitution,” Phaahla said.
He warned that uprisings are likely.
The Constitutional Court ruled on 7 July, in a case brought by the Scalabrini Centre, that people can apply for asylum however they entered South Africa. Their claims are still assessed.
Home Affairs says the ruling does not legalise all undocumented foreign nationals. The department withdrew the directive to process asylum seeker applications on 9 October after violent protests.
