Who decided South Africa owes Africa forever?

A growing number of African leaders and MPs have been losing their heads over South Africa in recent months, after domestic calls for illegal immigrants to leave the country.

Two incidents come to mind: the recent anti-South Africa diatribe by various members of the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) in July and that of delegates attending the 55th Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Africa Region Conference in Lilongwe, Malawi, last month. For bizarre reasons, the leaders believe South Africa owes them and their countries an unending debt.

At the July 30 PAP session, most MPs accused South Africans of ingratitude, arguing that their countries had contributed towards our liberation. South Africans, they averred, were intolerant of other Africans.

South African MPs’ effort to explain the country’s high levels of illegal immigration, migrant-related crime, worsening unemployment, pressure on public institutions and the takeover of the R900 billion-a-year township economy by mostly undocumented migrants were pooh-poohed. The South African contingent was shouted down. They subsequently pushed through a resolution calling for stringent measures to protect foreign nationals, hold local perpetrators accountable and strengthen mechanisms to prevent attacks. A suggestion was even made that PAP representatives monitor the government’s implementation thereof.

Not once did the African MPs ask why their compatriots desert their countries en masse for South Africa. The point seems lost on them that their citizens would probably remain at home if their governments ran their economies effectively and governed more democratically.

The hostility has been particularly visceral in Ghana and Nigeria, whose leaders reportedly asked that South Africa become a continental agenda item at the recent AU Heads of State Summit. Thankfully, Pretoria defeated the agenda.

Surely, we are entitled to ask: Is South Africa beholden to some African states? Is the sense of entitlement towards South Africa justified? Should South Africa tolerate illegal immigrants’ blatant disregard of its laws and sovereignty?

The answer lies in a better-governed and more democratic continent that promotes economic integration and the legal movement of people. It requires genuine democracy so that we no longer have countries whose presidents amend constitutions to extend their stay in office or rig elections.

South Africa cannot, on its own, be the mecca to which fellow Africans flock, legally and illegally. No self-respecting country allows itself to become a dumping ground for people who add little to its economy, let alone those who become a burden on its fiscus.

We must also address the supposed debt South Africa owes the continent for its role in the fight against apartheid. Many African countries opposed apartheid and supported South African liberation movements but they were not alone. Countries across Europe, Asia and the Americas also contributed.

Apartheid South Africa’s economic ostracisation by the wider international community played a significant role in creating the conditions that eventually led the National Party government to release Nelson Mandela and embrace negotiations.

Should the citizens of all those countries descend illegally on South Africa because their governments once supported our liberation? Of course, not. That is why the so-called debt to Africa is arrant nonsense.

Since democracy, South Africa has played an important role on the continent, expending resources on peace-making efforts in once violence-torn countries, with some South African soldiers paying the ultimate price. Yet one does not see South Africans arriving illegally in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo or Rwanda and becoming a criminal menace.

More recently, South Africa took Israel to the International Court of Justice over alleged genocide against Palestinians. We did so as a country committed to human rights and international law, not as an investment that would one day entitle South Africans to settle illegally in a liberated Palestine.

• Mathabela is an Agile Coach and a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and consultant. Dr Nyatsumba is a turnaround strategy expert, a chartered director and the MD of KMN Consulting.