Malema tackles bank forum on change
ECONOMIC Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema has given a stern warning to white-owned companies to transform or “wait for revolution” when transformation will be implemented.
“This is a lesson for revolution. You think you are owning now [and] you don’t want to find a long lasting solution to this crisis. You will lose everything‚” warned Malema.
He was speaking at the Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) yesterday on the topic of economic growth versus redistribution.
Malema‚ who was accompanied by EFF deputy president Floyd Shivambu‚ told the delegates that white South Africans were economically superior to black South Africans‚ saying they gained this through apartheid‚ colonial‚ inhuman and illegal means.
He said failure to accept this was at the centre of the country’s problems and that the red berets would have to change that.
“The point we are making here is that success is associated with whiteness. A white minority continues to own and control 90% of South Africa’s economy that is not in the hands of foreign investors and pension funds.
“These are the facts that I’m giving you in a comfortable situation without confrontation but we are having a conversation and you are not recipient of this information.
“You are actually sensitive to such information and discrediting anyone who says such things and make them irrelevant because you don’t want to hear the truth‚” Malema told the room full of RMB employees and other financial stakeholders.
His remarks come two days after he appeared in the regional court in Newcastle‚ KwaZulu-Natal‚ in relation to calling on EFF supporters to invade unoccupied land in 2016.
Malema is charged under common law with incitement to commit a crime and contravening the 1956 Riotous Assemblies Act‚ which he is challenging.
Malema added that neither Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa nor former African Union Commission chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma were the solutions to the country’s problems around land reform.
“I don’t think there’s any willingness to work with Ramaphosa or [Dlamini-Zuma] because they are all the same. They come from a rotten organisation and the problem is not the individual‚ it’s the organisation‚” said Malema.
He was responding to a question on whether the EFF would be willing to forge a working relationship with either of the two presidential candidates to execute changes in the South African constitution for land reform.
The red berets leader said the only way the constitution could be amended was if opposition parties worked together through a coalition government.
Malema has in the past criticised the ANC’s refusal to establish a parliamentary committee to investigate issues relating to land expropriation‚ accusing them of hypocrisy.
In February‚ the EFF tabled a motion in parliament calling on parties to agree to review constitutional provisions on land expropriation.
At the time‚ opposition parties in the National Assembly said they could not agree to the EFF’s ultimate goal of expropriating land without compensation. — TMG