| News article |
| No more illegal Zim workers | 19/12/2001 |
Messiba - Northern Province farmers have given an undertaking to the Department of Home Affairs that they will no longer employ Zimbabweans who are working illegally in South Africa.
Home Affairs director general Billy Masetlha said on Tuesday evening that the Soutpansberg Farmers Union had agreed to monitor their members' compliance with the agreement.
Speaking from a game farm overlooking the Limpopo River - at a party hosted by the farmers to celebrate the finalisation of the agreement with Home Affairs - Masetlha said the plan was to replace foreign labour with local labour without disrupting agricultural production.
The agreement with the farmers union ushered in more cordial relations with farmers, some of whom had undertaken court action - unsuccessfully - to get Home Affairs to stop its programme of registering non-South African farm workers, Masetlha said.
The Department of Labour, along with municipalities and non-governmental organisations, would co-operate with farmers to find South African labour to replace the returning Zimbabweans.
Farmers in the area have traditionally relied on cheap Zimbabwean labour.
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