EFF leader Julius Malema has vowed to revive a Section 25 motion on land expropriation, saying this would enable his party to expropriate 55% of South Africa’s land.
Campaigning in Esikhawini near Richards Bay in northern KwaZulu-Natal on Thursday, Malema said it did not make sense that white people owned ample land while black people were still landless.
“Without the land we are nobodies.
The land is dignity, the land is confidence, the land is an investment for the future. That is why we must retain the land in the hands of our people,” Malema said.
“We are not saying white people must be landless, all we are saying is that we need to share the land. It does not make sense for one white family to own 20 000 hectares of land alone. We need land for our people to be able to create job opportunities for themselves,” he said.
The EFF is one of the organisations that has brought the land question to the fore and escalated it all the way to Parliament. Malema said the party’s theme for this year’s election was “Our land and jobs now. Stop load shedding.”
“We are going to create jobs and we don’t make an apology when we say we are going to create jobs for all South Africans irrespective of their qualifications, irrespective of their age, irrespective of their background,” Malema said.
“These jobs are going to come from social housing and road infrastructure. Just from social housing and road infrastructure alone, we are going to create 4 million jobs.”
Among other things the EFF leader said, they would build proper houses for people to restore their dignity.
Since the formation of the EFF on July 26, 2013, the party’s support has grown. It has 44 members of Parliament, is represented in all nine legislatures, and has over 1 200 councillors.
The Mercury