Veteran journalist Kwesi Pratt Jnr says claims that foreign nationals are taking jobs from South Africans are false and driven by poverty, inequality and misinformation.
Speaking on Metro TV’s Good Morning Ghana, the former Managing News Editor of the Insight Newspaper said many African migrants working in South Africa occupy highly skilled positions that cannot easily be replaced.
“The claim that these foreigners have come to take our jobs is hogwash,” he said.
He explained that many Ghanaians and Nigerians living in South Africa work as lecturers, engineers and medical professionals.
“You have Ghanaians there, most of them are university lecturers, heads of faculties, medical doctors and engineers,” he said.
Pratt gave the example of a Nigerian specialist surgeon working in a hospital.
“If the Nigerian surgeon leaves that hospital, you probably have to close it because the people attacking him cannot perform his duty,” he said.
According to Pratt, many of those involved in xenophobic violence are unemployed young people frustrated by poor living conditions and lack of opportunity.
“They are simply trying to find answers to their problems of lack of access to social services like housing, education and health,” he said.
He blamed South Africa’s education system and the legacy of apartheid for deepening social tensions.
“It’s ignorant. It’s iniquitous. It’s the fault of an education system which cannot grant black people anything,” he said.
Pratt argued that apartheid era propaganda encouraged black South Africans to see themselves as superior to Africans from other countries.
“One of the propaganda tools used under apartheid was to make blacks in South Africa feel superior to blacks outside South Africa,” he said.
He added that many poor South Africans remained disconnected from the broader history of African solidarity during the anti apartheid struggle.
“They don’t know about the history where Nkrumah and others led the struggle against apartheid,” he said.
Pratt also warned against spreading unverified videos linked to the attacks, noting claims by South African authorities that some online footage had been generated using artificial intelligence.
He maintained that xenophobia was not unique to South Africa and pointed to past expulsions and discrimination in other African countries.
“It’s not a South African problem. It’s a problem of underdevelopment. It’s a problem of a very low level of consciousness,” he said.
Despite the tensions, Pratt said he believed the crisis could be resolved through education, diplomacy and African unity.
“I think this can be resolved,” he said.
