EFF slams ANC’s silence in Matome’s death
The ANC refused to give even a single comment on Matome Hlabioa’s death just because he left the party to join the EFF, EFF commander-in-chief Julius Malema said.
“They forget they are sitting in the Frans Mohlala House built by his money,” Malema said while addressing mourners who attended the funeral of the Limpopo tycoon, Matome Hlabioa, who was buried in Thohoyandou on Saturday, Capricorn Review reported.
Hlabioa, a friend to Malema and former Limpopo premier, Cassel Mathale, succumbed to cancer of the larynx at Limpopo Mediclinic on May 14, a day after his 49th birthday.
He had told his wife Marubini to take care of the children and died in their presence. Malema said the ANC refused to comment on Hlabioa’s death while sitting “on the same furniture he bought for them”.
He said anyone loyal to Mathale was locked out by the current ANC’s provincial executive committee, thinking they would stop Hlabioa, “but God opened another business door for him in Kwa-Zulu Natal”.
“His participation in business was not as a result of the ANC. Some people behave like parasites and compromise business. Some were arrested for dagga, but they call themselves ‘political prisoners’,” he said.
“Matome was a man of his word. We can’t dump him and his family now that he has died,” he said.
“When he was in and out of hospitals, I convinced his wife, Marubini, to become an EFF parliamentarian in order to get government medical aid so that she could afford her husband’s medication. She told me she doesn’t feel comfortable with parliamentary debates.
“I was feeling for her, that if her husband was not working due to illness, it will be difficult to pay his medication and government medical aid was a solution. I can’t dump or betray Matome. I will help his children wherever there is a need,” said Malema.
Mathale described the late Hlabioa as one of the men who contributed immensely to the building of Frans Mohlala House.
“He changed the dimension of my office, that of [Sello] Moloto, and Julius Malema’s office for the better,” he said.
Hlabioa is survived by his wife Marubini, three children, Khodani, Washu and Mukundi and his brother, sister and parents.
– Caxton News Service
Read original story on capricornreview.co.za
