Malema joins country-club set
Julius Malema and his wife, Mantwa Matlala, have joined the ranks of one of SA’s most exclusive clubs.
They are on the list of new members at the Inanda Club, which is in the heart of Sandton’s suburbs and close to its business district.
The club has many of the trappings of a country club, including a polo ground and stables for horses.
Patrons told the Sunday Times they were shocked when they saw Malema’s name on the club’s list of new members.
The Inanda Club is membership only for Johannesburg’s elite who like exclusivity in their down time.
Members have access to sporting and dining facilities away from ordinary people.
“Today the Inanda Club offers privacy and exclusivity to like-minded individuals, with a need for business, sport and social networking. Situated in the heart of a busy and vibey Sandton it is a ‘way of life’ reminiscent of country living and rural tranquillity,” according to the club website.
Malema is listed on the club notice board as a member of parliament and his wife as “a director”.
Malema and his wife’s home address was given as a Hyde Park property rented from controversial tobacco tycoon Adriano Mazzotti. It is about 4km away from the Inanda Club.
The club’s website also says that the institution is a “family-friendly club” and “provides a safe environment for you and your family to relax in and enjoy the recreational facilities that are available”.
The website states that the Inanda Club terrace restaurant, bars and dining facilities are available only to members.
The club refused to give details of Malema’s membership, saying it did not share details about its members.
Club secretary Pauline Butler said it did not reveal who its members were.
Malema, as leader of the EFF, has been critical of elitism.
In the past he was criticised for living in upmarket Sandton while his supporters were mostly the poor and downtrodden.
In 2017, he was referred to as a “Gucci revolutionary” by Zimbabwean politicians — a jibe at his known love for high-end, branded clothing.
Aside from the sporting facilities at the club, Malema can choose between two lounges in which to relax or work.
He did not respond to requests for comment on his membership.
● Another EFF MP has accused party leader Julius Malema of abusing the organisation’s funds and running the party like his “bedroom, kitchen, toilet and yacht”.
In an angry three-page resignation letter to “Dear Julius and your surrogates”, lowprofile EFF MP Zolile Xalisa claims Malema has been abusing the levies collected from EFF MPs and MPLs, and the party’s parliamentary allowances, using the money to throw jamborees for senior members after party meetings to “appease your guilt”.
Xalisa further alleges Malema has refused to account to the EFF central command team (CCT), its highest authority between conferences, on how the R427,000 collected from EFF MPs and MPLs in monthly levies has been spent. Xalisa served on the CCT.
Last week, another EFF legislator, Thembinkosi Rawula, resigned publicly after failing to secure a position on the party’s list of candidates to parliament. He, too, alleged that Malema abused EFF funds.
Xalisa is No 73 on the EFF’s list of preferred candidates to the next parliament, which reduces his chances of returning to the legislature in Cape Town unless the EFF achieves significant growth in next month’s election. His detractors said he is disgruntled about this, but he denied this, saying: “There is nothing special about being an MP.”
Upon his resignation, Xalisa was welcomed as an ordinary member of Mzwanele Manyi’s African Transformation Movement.
In his letter, Xalisa also alleges that Malema made members pay from their own pockets for weekend party activities.
“You used the EFF money in whatever way you deemed fit without consulting any of us, you threw parties whenever you feel after our meetings trying to appease your guilt of EFF money consumption by sharing the crumbs of it with EFF CCT members just to make them feel important around you, when you are just doing [it] to appease your guilt,” Xalisa writes to Malema.
“The little we could have appreciated at least if you were taking care of our deployment costs instead of guillotining [us] with exorbitant … weekly deployment cost, such as car hire, accommodation cost, buying Tshirts for EFF fighters and providing food for fighters at our own cost. If that was not abuse and exploitation, you will never know what is abuse and exploitation in the EFF.”
Xalisa says Malema runs the EFF like his personal fiefdom, with nobody holding him accountable for expenditure related to his allowance and an allocated credit card.
EFF spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi said Xalisa was lying because he had been placed further down on the party list to parliament.
“He too did not make the cut in the EFF parliament list of candidates. EFF branches democratically rejected him. He now joins a very short line of position-mongers who, because they lost positions, lie about the EFF.”