SOUTH Africa’s second biggest opposition party Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema has accused President Robert Mugabe’s government of doling out shares in expropriated companies to individuals rather than ordinary people.
BY RICHARD CHIDZA
Malema, despite being seen as a “disciple” of Mugabe and Zanu PF’s “scorched earth” policies, told the Oxford Union in the United Kingdom on Wednesday that he was not agitating for expropriation..
He tore into Mugabe’s flagship black economic empowerment policy, posited by the Zanu PF government as an African model.
“We will occupy ABSA and other institutions so that you pay attention. Strategic institutions will have to be occupied. There are so many stupid things we did during the armed struggle, but look where they got us. We got the attention of the international community and the oppressor to agree to come to the negotiating table,” he said.
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“Unlike how it was done in Zimbabwe, where 51% was given to individuals, (under) the so-called indigenisation policy, I am not saying that. I am saying you remain the boss, but invite the workers equally to be bosses.” He said he was not against private ownership of business.
“I am not saying let us scrap private ownership, I am calling for partnership with workers, not individuals. The only way it can be done properly is for capital to genuinely partner workers. They need to invite workers to be bosses, give the workers shares whatever percentage that would have been agreed. But do not get them into deep loans financed by banks and that the workers will have to service,” Malema said.
Malema has in the past described Mugabe as an icon and supported the country’s land redistribution programme carried out in the last 15 years and partly responsible for Zimbabwe’s economic mess.