Fire Gordhan or we will disrupt Sona, Malema threatens Ramaphosa

EFF leader Julius Malema says his party will continue with its plans to disrupt President Cyril Ramaphosa’s state of the nation address unless he fires public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan.

Addressing the media in Johannesburg on Sunday, Malema slammed Ramaphosa’s insistence on keeping Gordhan in his cabinet.

He said Gordhan, together with former Eskom board chairperson Jabu Mabuza, had misled Ramaphosa by stating that there would be no load-shedding until January 13 this year — but it was only Mabuza who had fallen because he was black.

“We are going to demand that Pravin must go, and we are going to demand that in parliament. And we are going to have rolling mass actions on Pravin, starting on February 13 in parliament.

“When Cyril starts [to speak], we start. That’s how it’s going to roll. When he starts to speak, we are speaking also about Pravin Gordhan,” said Malema.

He said Gordhan was in charge of the country and was destroying its assets — and that must come to an end.

“The man is untouchable. There were two people who misled the president, it was Pravin, it was Jabu Mabuza. An Africa has fallen but the Indian has remained because these minorities are not touched.

“Jabu Mabuza left, everybody agreed that these two misled the president. It was an African and an Indian, only an African leaves because that’s how it’s supposed to be in this country ... Minorities are not held accountable,” said Malema.

He said Ramaphosa has placed the country back in the hands of the white man and that white people have captured the Union Buildings and are running SA, in the same way the Guptas were doing.

“White capital is running this country and because they have got money, because it controls everyone, no-one is challenging them. We have taken a decision to challenge them. There is no white man who is going to capture the Union Buildings under our watch. We must not allow that,” said Malema.

He said whites have become more arrogant under Ramaphosa’s administration. He took aim at Bidvest, saying it was “doing everything” in SA and that were it run by a black man, it would have been declared corrupt.

“We are being controlled by whites here. Even the little political freedom we got in 1994, Cyril has surrendered that power back to whiteness. That’s our problem here,” said Malema.

He said as a result, his party has taken a resolution that none of its leaders will have a private meeting with Ramaphosa or “captains of industry” and if they do, they must alert the party before and afterwards and report back about the meeting.

Malema said Ramaphosa calls leaders of opposition parties to “soften” them before the Sona and question and answer sessions.

Malema said Ramaphosa has done nothing since the removal of former president Jacob Zuma, except become president.