Pretoria - The EFF has vowed to disrupt President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) if Public Enterprise Minister Pravin Gordhan still remains in office on Thursday.
EFF president Julius Malema made the vow when he addressed the media in Erasmia, outside Pretoria following his party’s extended national executive committee meeting on Sunday.
“If Cyril (Ramaphosa) starts speaking. We will also speak,” Malema said.
He claimed that Ramaphosa had not recorded a single victory or achievement since his election when Jacob Zuma was removed. Malema further contended that under Ramaphosa's watch the economy was contracting, recording some of the highest unemployment rates in the world; with over 50% of the youth effectively out of work.
“His government is dismantling and destabilising State Owned Enterprises, which are a people’s property, in order to justify privatisation and mass retrenchment of workers. In essence, he is effectively enabling white monopoly capital to take over SOEs and restrict the role of the state in the economy and industrial development in general. This is a reversal of the 1994 gains where the interests of the white minority reigned supreme over the interests of the black majority,” Malema said .
He said the problems of Eskom have worsened under the “incompetent and seemingly untouchable” Gordhan.
“South Africa, the largest economy in the continent, has power cuts everyday disrupting all social and economic life. Yet, there are no consequences on Pravin Gordhan who is the minister responsible for this crisis.
“There are as many power cuts in a day as there are blinks of an eye. Even the scheduled stages of load shedding are no longer reliable and no one can even plan around them anymore,” Malema said.
“Gordhan must go before he runs down all the assets of the state and the people of South Africa,” he said.
Malema said his party leaders have been barred from talking to Ramaphosa ahead of his Sona address saying such meetings were an opportunity for him to neutralise opposition parties.
“The CCT has therefore taken the decision that no EFF leader must ever meet Ramaphosa or any of the captains of industry in private."