The department of water and sanitation was hauled up before the high court for importing Cuban engineers by Solidarity. The case was later withdrawn because the department supplied adequate information.

I fully agree with the trade union that the Cubans are taking the bread out of SA engineers’ mouths. There is definitely not an iota of xenophobia here. A good government’s first mandate is to help and care for its own citizens.

Unemployment in SA stands at a record high of 32.6%, with youth aged between 25 and 34 years hitting the 41.3% mark. Unemployment in Cuba is around 3.5%. We are churning out idle hands that turn to be the devil’s workshop.

The question to Solidarity and its constituency: How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? White SA employers, including householders, brazenly hire black foreign nationals, while their fellow black South Africans are jobless and starving.

To rub salt into the wound, often undocumented and fraudulently documented foreigners are employed. Local truck drivers are currently frustrated, helpless, and hopeless. Where is the sense of fellow feeling? Does the noble effort of Solidarity not smack of hypocrisy?

Thami Zwane, Edenvale, Ekurhuleni