New court bid against Zuma

to address these social ills.

“As a way forward, the ANC leadership and government have to create an environment that will be conducive to enabling debate and discussions about what happens next in the country, instead of shutting down spaces and voices that they don’t agree with,” she said.

Students told the panel they were tired of the “rhetoric” and wanted action. Mlungisi Ngubane said the ANC should take the blame for the “crisis”.

“The Freedom Charter stipulates that the land belongs to all who live in it. How then are we going to take back the land from the minority whites? The ANC must start by chasing away the white people in the party and then deal with the land issue,” he said.

Responding, Zikalala said the ANC had always valued the notion of servant leadership.

“The protests we have seen recently were led by people who never elected the leaders of the movement. Fiscal prudence and financial discipline is what we adhere to. One percent of the richest people in the country control about R3.7 trillion of our economy,” he said.

“About 69% of white people still occupy top positions in the workplace, while black people are at the bottom. That 1% control the media which then tell people not exactly what is happening, but what the rich want the people to know.”

Zikalala denied that the downgrading of the economy meant that the country was in crisis. On radical economic transformation, he said this was one of the issues that would be dealt with during the party’s policy review in June.

On the land issue, he said: “We will be looking at expropriation of land without compensation. The state capture has always been in place in the country even during the apartheid regime. We must make it clear that the Guptas, Ruperts and Oppenheimer do not represent the interests of the ANC. The base of the ANC is the rural poor and working class in townships.”

‘ONE OF OUR GUIDING PRINCIPLES IS TO PARTNER WITH GOVERNMENT’

THE DA has filed an urgent application with the High Court in Pretoria to compel President Jacob Zuma to reveal his reasons for last month’s sweeping cabinet reshuffle.

The head of the party’s federal executive, James Selfe, said the application went hand in hand with the DA’s earlier application to review the rationality of the decision to remove Pravin Gordhan and Mcebisi Jonas from their posts as finance minister and deputy finance minister respectively in the March 31 reshuffle.

“This latest urgent application is necessary to force the president to disclose the reasons for and the record of his decision to reshuffle his cabinet so that our earlier application to review the rationality of his decision can proceed,” Selfe said.

Selfe said in its founding papers for the second application, the party asked that the court orders Zuma to provide a written record of his reasons for the reshuffle.

He said Zuma had been disingenuous in maintaining that he was not obliged to disclose his thinking as he had been exercising his executive power.

“It has also been established in law that all constitutional powers are subject to constitutional constraints.

“In particular, it is a requirement of our law that a decision must be rationally related to the purpose for which the power was conferred.” – ANA