More than 10 million black workers wake up every day In South Africa to sell their labour, yet they cannot afford basic things like houses, cars, clothes and education for their children. In fact black people in townships live like pigs when they are alive – and even when they are dead, the leader of the EFF Julius Malema said in Parliament in Cape Town.
Malema was responding to President Jacob Zuma’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) when he said more than 26 million South Africans live in absolute poverty and suffering where the African majority continue to be slaves and suppliers of cheap labour to the white minority as cleaners, garden boys, domestic workers, car guards, petrol attendants, security guards, rock drill operatives, and everything that pays low wages. “The ANC has destroyed the nursing, teaching and policing profession by paying those workers peanuts,” he said.
According to Malema it is now 22 years after the “so-called democracy” came into power and still less than 10 percent of the land has been redistributed. “We want to reveal the obvious fact that if it takes 22 years to redistribute 10% of the land, it will take South Africa 100 years to redistribute 50% of the land.”
He also said the SA economy under Zuma is no good as it is merely a consuming economy. “We are unable to manufacture and produce even the basic consumer goods and services such as phones, televisions, cars, many food items, teaspoons, match sticks, tooth picks, and clothes.
What kind of a self-respecting country fails to produce food for itself despite the availability of arable land?” Malema asked.
The EFF leader also questioned Zuma’s ability to lead the country.
Zuma, he said is the man:
- who knowingly had sex with an HIV Positive woman and later explained to Court that a shower would lessen the chances of contracting HIV. We are now a laughing stock of the world;
- who knowingly impregnated a friend’s child, despite the fact that he had many wives at home;
- who did not take any decisive action against a family who’s private jet landed at a critical National Key Point, and he instead attends that family’s gatherings and consults them on key issues relating to the country;
- who dines and takes comfort with being the friend of a family that compromised the security of South Africa by landing at a national key point without proper approval;
- who appoints Ministers with close relations to the Gupta family, and those Ministers immediately start negotiating business deals for the Guptas and his son; and
- who in December 2015, exchanged Ministers of Finance in South Africa, gave misleading and wrong reasons, and accelerated South Africa’s currency into a Junk status, which led to a loss of more than R500 billion.
Referring to Zuma as “Mr Zupta”, he said the Zuma legacy can be summed up into three things, Mshini wame, Nkanda and Guptas.
“You are not a legitimate president. I’m leaving. I cannot sit here to debate your address.”
