EFF leader Julius Malema has accused President Cyril Ramaphosa of having reversed the economic gains made by his predecessors, Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma.
“The gains of 1994 have been reversed, whatever Jacob Zuma and Thabo Mbeki achieved has been reversed. This guy whatever Mandela, Mbeki and Zuma had achieved in all those many years, it took him less than five years to reverse all of that, single-handedly. If there was a person who was a BEE in Eskom or SAA, Denel and other SOEs, all of them are no longer,” Malema said.
Malema was addressing the Mpumalanga Provincial Ground Forces Forum on Saturday.
Malema said BEE partners were being told to move out of the way by racist white partners who see Ramaphosa as their ally.
“They are not being removed by Ramaphosa’s declaration. White people went to them and said: ‘we no longer need you’ we have got a president now. So what BEE are you going to help us with?” he said.
Malema added that during the time of Mandela, Mbeki and Zuma, the economy was doing better and South Africans were able to participate freely in the economy.
“Today it is difficult to point to anyone in the township and suburb who is black skin who has money today. No one has money. We were building houses in the villages. We were taking our kids to the best of the best schools. In the last five years, all of that has been reversed,” he said.
Malema also told ground forces that the country will suffer should coal power be phased away.
He said coal should not be allowed to leave Mpumalanga as it is the bedrock of its economy.
He urged party members to protect their interests as he was presenting the party’s road map to next year’s elections.
“We must never allow coal to leave Mpumalanga, because we are coal and without coal, there is no Mpumalanga. The day they close coal power stations, that is the day you are all gone. By the way, coal is everything. There is nothing we can do with the economy of South Africa without coal. When they say we are polluting and messing up the environment, go and look at research, we contribute very little to the pollution of the world,” he said.
siyabonga.sithole@inl.co.za
The Star