News24 reports that passing a private member's bill that will preserve jobs for South Africans and establishing an integrity commission as a Chapter 9 institution are two of the IFP's goals for the 2020 parliamentary year.
The party's parliamentary caucus, which held a two-day session in Cape Town last week to prepare for the year ahead, briefed the media on its plans on Friday. IFP chief whip Narend Singh said that the biggest threat to SA was joblessness and to that end, the IFP would introduce a private member's bill that would place a quota on the number of foreign nationals who could be employed in SA, reserving the largest portion for South Africans. Asked if this was not xenophobic, nationalistic and populist, IFP MP Liezl van der Merwe said it was not a xenophobic bill and it would “actually solve xenophobia" as many people have complained that foreign nationals were taking their jobs. She claimed it was in line with international best practice, adding that similar measures were in place in Nigeria, Ghana and Angola. IFP MP and national spokesperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa commented: "It's not nationalistic, it's not xenophobic, it's patriotic." While the IFP supports universal health care, it said it had concerns about some of the mechanisms the National Health Insurance Bill provided for, and it would try and persuade Health Minister Zweli Mkhize to give thought to some of its proposals.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Jan Gerber at News24
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