Helen Zille makes ANC MEC Belinda Scott 'ashamed to be white'

KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Finance and African National Congress veteran Belinda Scott says that she is ashamed to be white after utterances on colonialism by Western Cape premier Helen Zille.

"The utterances by some of my fellow white compatriots make me ashamed‚" she said on Tuesday in Woodlands outside Pietermaritzburg.

In a final push to snatch Msunduzi Municipality's vacant‚ and key Ward 32 from the Democratic Alliance‚ the ANC brought out its big guns including national executive committee member Bheki Cele.

Nathi Olifant

Picture: Nathi Olifant

The event‚ billed as a Human Rights Day commemoration‚ planned at the 11th hour‚ came just 24 hours after DA leader Mmusi Maimane's visit to the same area on Monday.

• Call for Zille's colonial tweets to be debated in WC legislatureThe ANC in the Western Cape wants the provincial legislature to debate Premier Helen Zille’s colonial tweets.

The ruling party also roped in two MECs - Mthandeni Dlungwane‚ education MEC who is also the ANC's regional chair in Pietermaritzburg‚ and social development MEC Weziwe Thusi.

The ward became vacant when former DA councillor Clive Lotz defected to the ANC three months ago.

The ANC used Zille's tweets to vilify the DA as a party for whites with no interest in the lives of poor people‚ except for using them as voting fodder.

Scott and Cele led the assault.

"Today I want to speak from the heart. I have been walking today in this ward. I hang my head in shame that the people in this ward support people like Helen Zille‚ a woman who supports colonialism. Many of you young people‚ you must listen to your mothers‚ fathers and your grandparents and get them to tell you what colonialism means‚" she said.

"It means killing African people‚ it means treating Africans like animals‚ it means to silence your voice. A leader of the DA this week said what is wrong with colonialism. Shame. But she's not the only one."

Nathi Olifant

Picture: Nathi Olifant

She singled out DA MP Dianne Kohler Barnard who previously praised PW Botha's government and the apartheid police in a social media post.

• Speaker says Wednesday is D-day on Zille tweet debateA decision on whether Western Cape Premier Helen Zille’s tweets about colonialism will be the topic of a public debate will be made on Wednesday.

Cele also fired a broadside at Zille.

"Zille said all black people in the Western Cape are refugees‚ that's why they are curtailing school intake there and closing every space so that we go back where we come from. But last week Zille outdid herself. She said colonialism was too nice‚ but she forgot they marginalised us and that's why we still bask in the sun like spiders and lizards‚" he said.

Cele said the government was doing its best to resolve the land issue but added that government would expropriate land whose owners lived abroad.

He said land would be given to the needy and it was about time that people had title deeds.

• There are no sacred cows in the DA says Mmusi MaimaneDA Leader Mmusi Maimane is not mincing his words on Western Cape Premier Helen Zille's stormy tweet praising colonialism.

"Having a title deed empowers you‚ it's your human right. It even gives you the right to bargain with a bank‚" he said.

Poor families were given groceries that included maize meal‚ potatoes‚ braai packs and cooking oil‚ with Thusi saying she was not afraid to give out food.

"I always tell them in parliament that we do not buy people through food parcels‚ but we do what people want and they want food parcels‚" she said.

The ward is contested by the DA which is fielding pastor Shawn Adkin‚ the ANC's candidate is Merle Williams while the IFP is fielding Sakhile Makhathini.

TMG Digital/TimesLIVE