He is not the first to say this, and sadly does not seem to be alone in believing it.
The South African population is estimated to be at 63 million people by Stats SA which conducts an indiscriminate census. By indiscriminate I mean they count everyone in the country’s borders regardless of their legal status.
If there are 27 million foreigners in South Africa, that would mean 42.86% of the people in South Africa are foreign nationals.
That would mean approximately 1 out of every two people you meet on the South African streets, is a foreign national.
I must concede that this does not include the 2 million that Shaka Zulu from Temu claims he has deported, since walking around barefoot all over South Africa telling us how much he is a “man”.
So maybe now there are 25 million foreign nationals in SA. Give or take.
Do these numbers make sense to you, Tumisho?
Moving on to Dr Dlamini Zuma, someone I have long respected.
What disappoints me is how tone-deaf her public messaging has become. She continues to use every platform to tell South Africans why we should not isolate ourselves and why we should embrace open borders blah blah blah. Yet when scores of children died after being poisoned by products linked to spaza shop incidents, I did not witness the same urgency, empathy, or sustained public advocacy from her or many of her fellow politicians.
The contrast is difficult to ignore. It leaves many ordinary South Africans wondering whose concerns receive the most attention and whose suffering is treated as an afterthought.
Thank you, Dokotela, for showing us where your priorities lie. As taxpayers and citizens, we expected stronger leadership, greater compassion, and a louder voice when our communities were grieving. @DlaminiZuma