Speech by EFF leader Julius Malema in the debate on the President’s Opening of Parliament Address, Cape Town, 19 July 2024

UNREVISED HANSARD

JOINT SITTING

FRIDAY, 19 JULY 2024

Mr J S MALEMA: We want to acknowledge the leadership of all political parties that form part of the progressive forces here in Parliament. This includes the leadership of the MK party, the ATM, the UAT, and the NCC. We want to salute the people of South Africa who have rejected the former liberation movement that has enjoyed political power for the last 30 years. Today, that era has come to an end.

It is beyond doubt that the former liberation movement failed to turn the political power into economic power. As our forefathers in the liberation struggle in the African continent said, political power without economic power is meaningless. Mr President, you indeed spoke like a badly wounded buffalo yesterday. You spoke like a given-up soul. Nothing inspirational came from that tired speech yesterday. You didn’t speak like a person who declined electoral support with 17% to less than 50%.

How on earth do you repeat a speech that made you lose elections? You were saying to South Africans yesterday in not so many ways that you learned nothing out of these historic elections to an extent that you want to continue business as usual. We grew up being told that some of you were collaborators, but we gave you some benefits of the doubt. It was said in this House that you personally wrote a letter to the apartheid police accusing your fellow comrades of planting communist ideas in your head, and we refused to believe that story at that time.

It now makes sense that despite the apartheid regime being so oppressive against all freedom fighters, you peacefully and uninterruptedly attended university and you were given your first job by the ambassadors of apartheid, capitalism and colonialism. Without a hassle, you bought yourself a first car and a house with the assistance of the Urban Foundation, which was anchored by the Ruperts and the Oppenheimers while your comrades were sleeping under trees in exile and languishing in jails. We asked ourselves as to how did you form a union of mine workers without being a mine worker. But no, you were the conveyor belt between the workers and the super-exploitative mining capitalists in South Africa after the Oppenheimers and Anglo Americans had concluded that the mine workers must be organised.

Our elders in the struggle have made allegations before in this House that throughout the struggle against apartheid, you were insulated from any form of arrest and harassment by the apartheid system. Towards the end of apartheid, you shockingly placed yourself at the centre of the negotiation for the end of apartheid.

No one knows how you arrived to be at the centre of the negotiations of our liberation. It now explains as to why so many compromises and capitulations were made leading to a situation where economic power remained in the hands of the white minority.

The CHAIRPERSON ON THE NCOP: Hon Malema, could you take your seat. There is a point of order. The Deputy Chief Whip?

The DEPUTY CHIEF WHIP OF THE MAJORITY PARTY: Hon Chairperson of the NCOP, you instructed that the hon member, hon Malema must sit down before I raise my point of order. The hon Malema is casting aspersions on the President - on the persona of the President. Can he please bring in a substantive motion to support statements that he is making in the House. Thank you.

The CHAIRPERSON ON THE NCOP: Thank you very much, hon Chief Whip. The order is sustained. Rules does make provision that if the member imputes improper motive against another member, you may do that by way of a motion and therefore that has to be substantiated and therefore hon Malema, can you then proceed with your speech. I see there’s another point of order that’s been raised by the DA. [Interjections.}

Mr J S MALEMA: Withdraw what?

The CHIEF WHIP OF THE OPPOSITION: House Chair, I rise on a point of order in terms of Rule 92(10), which indicates that when a point of order is raised during the debate, the member called to order must resume his or her seat and after the point of order has been stated to the presiding officer by the member raising it, the member raising the point of order must likewise immediately resume his or her seat when she has concluded his or her submission. Can I just get clarity on the fact when the hon, the Deputy Chief Whip of the ANC raised the point of order, the member at the podium remained standing and I would just like your ruling on that. Thank you.

The CHAIRPERSON ON THE NCOP: Hon Malema, we have requested that you take your seat but despite that ... You did, thank you very much. As I have ruled on the previous order that was raised by the Chief Whip, hon Malema, can you take your podium and apologise for what you just said. [Interjections.]

Mr J S MALEMA: Must I apologise for not sitting down?

The CHAIRPERSON ON THE NCOP: Could you take your seat, hon Malema. [Interjections.] The order was raised with regards to casting aspersions on the President. Can I be allowed time, hon members, and then I will give you space. Order, hon members. The order was raised with regards to the hon member casting aspersions on the President and accordingly. Hon members, can you please take your seat. I have not recognised you, hon Shivambu. Can you please take your seat. I have not concluded. [Interjections.] Hon member, can you allow me to conclude?

Hon Malema, you can take the podium, but please - can you please withdraw or rather not repeat what you have said earlier on, as you proceed with your speech. [Interjections.] Hon members, please can you ... Hon members! Hon members! Hon Malema, can you sit down? Hon Shivambu?

Mr N F SHIVAMBU: On a point of order, House Chair. We are going to forgive you because you are new, and you don’t know the Rules of this Parliament. [Interjections.] When a point of order is raised, you must specify on the Rule, a specific sentence or a phrase that you say this is a violation of the Rules of the National Assembly. What the commander-in-chief is doing is to give a political characterisation of a phenomenon. That is a point of debate. It’s not casting aspersions. How else do we deal with political questions without giving context to what got transferred to where we are now?

Where else do we say that except here in this Parliament? You can’t suppress political debate because of your misinterpretation and misunderstanding of the Rules. Please allow the speech to be finished and then when we later on go to the Rules Committee, we are going to illustrate to you with proper evidence when we are inducting you that the Rules do not say what you are saying that you must withdraw. Please be patient with this process, you are going to understand them when time progresses. Currently, your application is incorrect.

The CHAIRPERSON ON THE NCOP: Thank you, hon Shivambu. Hon members, Rule 53 makes provision that if a member makes personal reflection on the members’ integrity that are equally offensive or damaging, which cannot be necessarily substantiated, therefore, that should be done by a way of a motion so that a member can substantiate what he has been saying. At this point in time, hon Malema has cast aspersions against the President, which needs to be substantiated accordingly. Therefore, the order remains sustainable. Hon Malema, as you proceed with your debate, can you kindly refrain from making such aspersions. Thank you very much. You may proceed. [Interjections.]

Mr J S MALEMA: Must I proceed? Thank you very much. It now explains as to why so many compromises and capitulations were made, leading to a situation where economic power remained in the hands of the white minority, leaving black people with meaningless political power.

We can today confirm that it was pure infiltration by forces of darkness. When it was clear that President Mandela is not going to make you the first deputy president of the democratically elected South African government in 1994, you threw tantrums and even boycotted his inauguration. The same President Mandela you asked us to celebrate yesterday, you missed the historic moment to do so in 1994 because of personal aggrandisement.

Like many people in South Africa, I stood here in this house and said we will give you the benefit of the doubt, believing that the allegations against you of being a collaborator might not be true. I will tell why I am giving you this personal account. It is necessitated by your activities, actions and decisions over the past weeks since the electoral defeat of the former liberation movement, which demonstrated clearly that in the battle against neo-apartheid and neocolonialism, you chose the side of the oppressor like you did in the past, yet pretending to be with us, the oppressed people.

Why will the apartheid beneficiaries say that among all black political leaders, you are the only one they can work with to an extent that you are called a better black with a better accent, and you believe them over us. They call us criminals who must be arrested whether we have committed any crime or not because we disagree with them politically and you believe them over us. Your own brothers and sisters who come from Tshiawelo and Venda with you, are today looked down because of you.

You have committed to be a representative of the oppressor. The white capitalist establishment is willing to turn a blind eye to even serious allegations of wrongdoing against you because through you they believe that they will perpetuate the exploitation of the oppressed class and reverse the gains of the political freedom attained in 1994. It doesn’t matter what you say, but we want to state categorically that the coalition between the DA and the former liberation movement is a sell-out position, typical of collaborators who sacrifice and compromise the struggle against apartheid and colonialism.

White minority arrogance has increased under your term of office. You should have seen them yesterday when you were speaking, it was like you are a true qabane kagogo Helen Zille [friend of granny Helen Zille].

You boldly take these counter-revolutionary and reactionary decisions because you know you have a full protection of white capitalist establishment. All the things you said yesterday are meaningless because they are exactly what you said in the six state of the nation addresses you have given since you became President in 2018. None of the commitments you made during this state of the nation addresses have been met.

You state here that the vision you are operating under is still the National Development Plan, NDP, Vision 2030 whose targets have never been met and will never be met. The NDP had targeted to create a certain number of jobs, but joblessness has increased. The NDP’s target was to reduce unemployment by 14% in 2020, but today unemployment is 32,9% and more than 12 million people are jobless. Even if you meet the target tomorrow of achieving 14% unemployment, the fact of the matter is, you miss the target here. The NDP target was to reduce poverty from 39% by 2030, but poverty today is more than 50%. More people live on poverty under your presidency than any other period in the past 30 years.

The NDP target was 10% of the GDP for infrastructure investment, but between 2010 and 2022, public sector infrastructure investment was not more than 5,8%. The NDP target was to grow the economy by an average of 5,4% for it to be practical to achieve any of the NDP goals. But in the past 10 years, the economy has not grown by more than 2%.

Mr President, yesterday you shocked all of us and will never recover from that shock. You said nothing about international relations while we are living in a world defined by shifting global balance of forces. The West, under the guidance and protection of the United States of America, is agitating for a world war which will be defined by recolonisation of the African continent and the Global South, and you never said anything about that.

There is an ongoing aggressive war by apartheid Israel over Palestine, and you never said anything about that because your coalition partners are all fanatics of a Zionist apartheid Israel. Shame on you that you said nothing about the genocide committed right in front of us because ulava poso [you want the position]. You chose glory over the dying children and women of Palestine because you are scared to offend your coalition partners. President Mandela, a close friend of President Arafat, who you said we must celebrate yesterday, should be turning in his grave.

The trade embargo against Cuba is still intact despite the fact that Cuba played a role in the struggle against apartheid, you never said anything about that. There is instability in the Democratic Republic of Congo and South African soldiers are dying in that war and you never said anything about that. There is a real threat of instability in the entire the Southern African Development Community, SADC, region and you never said anything about that. There is loss of life in South Sudan, but you had nothing to say about that. The Brics Forum has been joined by additional countries such as Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Egypt, Argentina, Iran and United Arab Emirates and you never said anything about how South Africa should maximise these strategic relations to grow the economy. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO, is agitating for a world war through its admission of Ukraine into NATO alliance and you never said anything about that.

This is happening while South Africa has discovered strategic oil and gas natural resources, which in itself, Minister Mantashe, is a cause for global security - but your president said nothing about that. Even if the global balance of forces does not matter to you, there is nothing tangible you said about the high levels of crime happening in South Africa. In the past year, South Africa had more than 27 000 murder cases and you never said anything about that.

Are we being handed over to the imperialists to take over as South Africa? Mr President, there are more than 300 000 students who have passed and attained their certificates, diplomas and degrees, but owe universities and universities of technology huge amounts of money. We will cancel student debt and introduced free decolonised education. Now, you claim to have created 2 million jobs through your Presidential Employment Stimulus, but there are no additional 2 million jobs that were created since you took office in 2018. If you want to argue this point, go and argue with Statistics SA.

Another issue we need to highlight is that Kusile Power Station added an additional 800 MW into national grid two weeks ago. You never mentioned anything about that. Instead, you chose to mention 256 MW of unreliable energy by independent power producers, which was plugged into the grid in the North West province.

This is evidence that in addition of selling fictional buffaloes at Phala Phala, you are also a salesperson for independent power producers. These independent power producers were at the centre of why South Africa experienced perennial load shedding for years until two months before the elections. The land which our people desperately needed for human settlements, agriculture, public service, and business was left in the hands of the oppressors. Our people were told about willing-buyer, willing-seller, in a situation where violence and genocide were used to learn disposition of the Khoi, the San, and all indigenous people of our country. We’ll amend section 25 of the Constitution in our lifetime to allow expropriation of land without compensation. [Interjections.]

South Africa, our country, is being traded. We, the progressive forces, need to constitute an alternative radical agenda. Let us do everything in our power to rescue our country from being traded on a silver platter. We call on all workers movements, civil society, religious leaders, and traditional leaders to reject this grand coalition led by the DA under the pretence of the so-called Government of National Unity. We as the EFF, will not form part of a fractional and a decoy of the so-called national dialogue which happens after the government has already committed budgets and programmes to this agenda. We are not in the business of talk shows.

We are in an agenda to realise true economic emancipation of our people. No matter what it takes, we will never associate with the collaborators and the sell-out agenda of the establishment.

Sepedi:

E re ke le botṧeng, nonyana phakuphaku e bea lee le tee. Ga re tṧhoṧe ke maru a go tla bosele. Motho wa go ba le ...

English:
... matric who has never been subject to a peer review, comes here and calls us VBS looters. I understand that the mind of a rat will not comprehend that it is actually sitting with VBS looters themselves in the Government of National Unity. The same matriculant is a beneficiary of the loot of R20 billion of Steinhoff that was invested by Public Investment Corporation, PIC. No amount of nonsensical threats of arrest can silence us. Not even death can silence us, because Mama Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s voice has multiplied. Ours is a generational mission. We shall overcome. Victory is certain. We want to tell you now that your days are numbered. Thank you very much. [Interjections.]

Source: Unrevised Transcript.