Two transport companies in Gauteng were raided on Wednesday as government agencies continue to clamp down on the illegal employment of foreign nationals as truck drivers in the local road freight sector.
The provincial chairman of the All Truck Drivers Foundation and Allied South Africa (ATDF-ASA), Xolani Zwide, said at least three undocumented drivers had been arrested at one of the companies.
An official from D&L Transport who did not want to be named, has since refuted this claim but confirmed that representatives from the Departments of Labour, Immigration and Transport, accompanied by police, arrived at the company’s premises in Kempton Park and spent about three hours going through “certain statutory documents”.
“That I can confirm but no one was arrested while they were here. That is completely untrue. I can also confirm that we do have two foreign nationals working for us but both have the necessary permits.”
Zwide said during the raid, which was accompanied by at least three officials from the ATDF-ASA, another operator was found to have more than 20 undocumented foreign nationals driving for the company.
Efforts to corroborate this through the company he identified have so far proved unsuccessful.
Zwide said the first such raid for the year followed after the ATDF-ASA and government agencies had embarked on clamp-downs last May.
Last Friday at the organisation’s offices in Leondale, Zwide told Freight News that the ATDF-ASA remained committed to “rooting out illegal foreign national drivers working in our industry.
“We have enough of our own people that can work in the transport sector, but some companies continue to employ foreign nationals because they don’t want unionised drivers and they usually pay these people less.”
In response to claims that foreign national drivers are often better skilled and more adept at working for cross-border transporters, Zwide said: “It’s not an acceptable excuse. We need to upskill our own people.”
He said the ATDF-ASA had noticed that since last year’s raids, it had been noticed that more and more companies were aligning themselves with immigration and labour laws.
The D&L official said they had more than 50 people on the company’s payroll, of which the two non-South African drivers were the only foreign nationals working for them, “and they have been with us for many years.
“We are part of the National Bargaining Council (for the Road Freight and Logistics Industry) and do not employ un-documented drivers.”
The official said there was no prior notification from any government official that this would happen.
“They just arrived, spent at least three hours and then left.”
She said she found it odd that among the people present during the raid “was a driver who was let go last week."
“We started with retrenchments last year and this person was part of the raid, which we found a bit strange.
“In the end, we were told about a few cosmetic issues that required our attention: a broken light bulb in a store, a toilet seat and a door handle that needed to be replaced.”
Last week Freeman Bhengu, interim deputy secretary general of the ATDF-ASA, said more of the same should be expected in 2025.
“We want to rid our image of a few misconceptions, such as truck burning on the N3 (and other supply chain routes) that we have been associated with.
“All we want is fairness in transport.”
