Speech by EFF CIC Julius Malema MP in the debate on the Budget Vote of the Presidency, Parliament, July 23 2014

Honourable Chairperson,

1. We would like to congratulate members of the ruling party for showing support to the people of Palestine.

2. We expect that the Ambassador of Israel to South Africa should leave his country because we cannot turn a blind eye when those who were with us during the struggle period are encountered with difficulties.

3. This coming Saturday, the 26th of July 2014, the Economic Freedom Fighters will be celebrating its 1st anniversary. The 26th of July marks exactly 1 year since we opened the National Assembly on what is to be done in Soweto.

4. Many people underestimated the emergence of the EFF, and had ruled out the struggle for economic freedom.

5. Ordinary people from all across South Africa gathered to say that enough is enough, and declared that we need to take the struggle forward, now on a different platform.

6. When we started, all political parties imitated everything we did because the EFF is innovative and leader of creativity.

7. These political parties will continue to learn from us and will copy many things we do as a Movement, and we are really inspired because imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.

8. We did so because we believed that truly radical and militant economic transformation should be pursued through a different platform, not through the liberation movement which failed to economically liberate the people of South Africa.

9. We said on the 26th of July that the EFF is Government in Waiting, and if there is anyone who still doubts that today, that person needs closer medical attention.

10. The EFF will be government of South Africa and those who record history should pay closer attention to what we are saying so that when we are government, they can replay this moment and be reminded that we did say that we are government in waiting.

11. We currently have representation in the two houses of this Parliament and all the Provincial Legislatures.

12. After the 2016 Local Government elections, the EFF will be represented in all the Councils of Municipalities in South Africa.

13. Our aim is to consolidate all working class and Left forces behind a truly radical economic transformation programme which will restore the dignity of ordinary South Africans.

14. We are the true and only representatives of the working class in South Africa, and our programme will inspire a radical economic emancipation movement in the whole African continent.

15. We have demonstrated with no resources and very little space and time that behind our ideals are genuine ideals of a future South Africa.

16. Over the past weeks, we have demonstrated to the people of South Africa that we are not just critiques of the current government, but we hold concrete and coherent alternatives to the programme of all political parties in this Parliament.

17. Now, we have rejected all the budget votes of all government departments because we argue that they do not represent anything meaningful for a better and economically liberated South Africa.

18. It appears that all political parties in this Parliament have one programme called the National Development Plan.

19. The NDP is supposed to be a vision for government's programmes until 2030, and majority of its proposals are not practical.

20. They are not practical because in all fairness, it will never be possible to liberate South Africa unless there is radical change of property relations, wherein the wealth of those who stole it through colonial dispossession is transferred to the majority of the people.

21. Honourable Chairperson, the NDP is not a correct programme to take this country to a development path, and here are the reasons why:

a. The National Development Plan does not have protected industrial development at the centre of the development that South Africa should undergo until 2030.

b. The NDP's identified job drivers as services, domestic work, and informal sector. This is not a sustainable plan, because to improve the living conditions of millions of people, you need formal jobs in the industrial sectors because services are not labour-intensive.

c. The NDP aims to diminish workers' rights and their protection because it proposes lots of labour cheapening mechanisms as a means of attracting investments. This approach is a problem and will never happen because in South Africa, workers should be priority and attempts to weaken their rights will be resisted by workers on the ground.

d. The NDP does not place increase of agricultural productivity at the centre of development, only targeting an additional 1 million jobs by 2030... This means only 70 000 jobs per year in agriculture until 2030.Agriculture and the entire food economy is the most reliable means through which South Africa can guarantee food security and create sustainable jobs for millions of people, not 70 000 per year.

22. In 2030, South Africa's population will be more than 65 million people and that in itself has potential to create millions of jobs if SA produces enough food to feed itself and still export to the continent. The NDP does not have a plan on land reform, agricultural productivity and the food economy.

23. The NDP does not say anything about the need to locally beneficiate minerals resources, and big mining capital is happy with that because they are not interested in local beneficiation.

24. Our people are still landless, property-less, homeless and hopeless, and the NDP does not contain cogent programme to redistribute land to all South Africans.

25. The EFF is the only hope, not the National Development Plan, which is a joint programme of both the ANC and the Democratic Alliance.

26. We are aware that the current government is denying our people a proper democratic space to democratically participate.

27. We accepted the outcomes of the 2014 general elections, but such does not mean that they were a true reflection of the wishes of the people.

28. Those elections were presided over by a Chairperson who immediately after elections was found to be unsuitable to occupy office by a competent Court of Law, and such happened because the EFF and other political parties took her to Court.

29. There are many people here who are not suitable to occupy the positions they are occupying, and the people of South Africa will reject them. It is a matter of time Honourable Chairperson.

30. Now, our objection to the NDP is not a slogan, neither is it a trend we have seen from the ruling party in all the debates.

31. We have during the debates in the economic cluster Budget Votes raised the realities of base erosion, transfer pricing and profit shifting.

32. No political party had in the past raised the fact that big business in the minerals and natural resources sector is robbing South Africa of massive potential wealth.

33. The ANC should be in unity with the EFF on this question because combatting transfer pricing will mean that the State has access to additional resources to deliver services.

34. The ANC should be in unity with the EFF in combatting private sector corporate crimes, because South Africa is being robbed of its wealth.

35. The problem with the ruling party is that it refuses to accept that South Africa is in a crisis of underdevelopment and poverty.

36. Every time the ruling party addresses this Parliament and other platforms, they say they have a good story to tell.

37. What good story is this when majority of our people are living in absolute poverty?

38. What good story is this when levels of unemployment is unbearable?

39. What good story is this when children do not have access to good quality education?

40. What good story is this when our people do not have access to quality healthcare?

41. What good story is this when communities still do not have access to water?

42. What good story is this when our people do not have access to toilets?

43. Maybe we do not know what good stories are, but maybe we should accept that what the ruling party preaches in this Parliament is indeed a story, a drama which is not worth celebrating.

44. They should change their slogan to "WE HAVE A GOOD DRAMA TO TELL" because what we have been hearing here is just drama.

45. It is indeed a drama when a sitting President fails to meet his own deadlines on the submission of a report he said he will submit to this Parliament.

46. It is indeed drama when the sitting President promises the people of Giyani access to water and 5 years later, Giyani still does not have water.

47. It is indeed drama when the sitting President promises the people of Vhembe a hospital and still there is no hospital.

48. It is a drama when Presiding Officers of this House are in the pockets of white mining capital as Directors of Mining companies and some take loans from government to buy animal farms they cannot maintain.

49. It is a good drama when Directors of Big Mining companies turn their shares into so called blind shares and do nothing about the fact that Mineworkers were killed in their name.

50. The ANC has been existing in this house since 1994 without real opposition, but friends who work with them at night and pretend to be opposing each other here in Parliament.

51. What really is the difference between the ANC and the DA?

52. They have the same programme called the National Development Plan.

53. They have the same Masters, white monopoly capital which tell them what to say, when and how.

54. This fact informed our rejection of all the budget votes because they are based on a reactionary and right wing political programme.

55. Any political programme which does not propose the return of our land is right wing.

56. Any programme which does not speak to nationalisation of Mines in order to locally beneficiate and industrialise our minerals is right wing.

57. The people of South Africa should be relieved that the EFF is now here and will be here to liberate them.

58. We have 7 cardinal pillars which are non-negotiable and will be our programme until we take over this country.

59. This is what will constitute the core of our programme until we take political power and transfer it to majority of our people.

60. Those who hold political power now, got it from the people, but are exercising that power for the benefit of white monopoly capital. The white monopoly capital has hijacked the peoples power by controlling the state organs and those in SARS who want to hold big capital in terms of taxes are being threatened with suspensions, expulsions and possible arrest by the hawks because some in the hawks are in the payroll of monopoly companies such as BAT.

61. Mr President, you must be careful of your deputy president because he sleeps with white monopoly capital.

62. We are what South Africa has been waiting for.

63. And as we said during elections, ‘NOW IS THE TIME FOR ECONOMIC FREEDOM".

64. Those who support the EFF should continue to do so, and those who pray for the EFF should continue to do so.

65. The EFF is a Blessed generation, and will live and lead until Freedom Comes!

Issued by the EFF, July 23 2014

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