Malema declares the people must have land
He added that the government, specifically our current president Mr Jacob Zuma, was wasting valuable time and money.
HHOYI – Mr Julius Malema, leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), visited the small town on Tuesday.
The programme was supposed to start at 15:00 but Malema arrived an hour and a half later as a result of intimidation by members of the ANC who had gathered to meet him.
A high police presence was on hand to ensure that the situation didn’t get out of control as members of the EFF and ANC seemed adamant about confronting one another.
By the time Malema arrived, the ANC had dispersed, leaving ecstatic EFF members to welcome their leader.
Malema addressed the crowd in English after explaining to his followers that he did not speak isiZulu.
He addressed the job-creation issue and how ownership of land was the cause of this problem.
“The government is spending millions to buy back your land, why must you spend that amount of money? You should take back your land, so that you can create a job for yourself.
“A man who does IT work will tell me, I’m in IT – I don’t need land. To him I’ll say, you need land to build a building to house your computers.”
He went on to say that although South Africa produced one of the best fighter jets in the world it couldn’t produce vehicles or cellphones.
“Everyone has one; even my grandmother has one, why have we not created these companies and these jobs? The problem is we do not have the land.”
He added that the government, specifically our current president Mr Jacob Zuma, was wasting valuable time and money.
Mentioning the Nkandla homestead, Malema continued to say failure by the ruling party to redistribute the intended 30 per cent of land 20 years after democracy, is a clear indication that it would take the party another
100 years to do so.
In this 20 years of democracy only five per cent had been given back.
“But our president has a swimming pool of R1,2 million, a kraal and a spaza shop worth R500 000 for his wives.
How many RDP houses could he have built?” said Malema.
The EFF followers reacted positively to their leader’s speech and sang and danced to the song, “Don’t go EFF, don’t go”.
All in all the rally was regarded as a successful one for the EFF’s election campaign.
