The Economic Freedom Fighters stands firm that President Cyril Ramaphosa avoided their questions from the debate on the Opening of Parliament Address (OPA).
This after Ramaphosa told EFF leader Julius Malema that he needed to learn politics and avoid personal attacks in parliament matters.
Ramaphosa reprimanded Malema for swearing at his father. And he highlighted that he would never do the same even after engaging with the red berets’ grandmother.
EFF spokesperson Leigh-Ann Mathys said Ramaphosa failed to respond to “pressing matters” that they had raised during their debate.
Deflection from addressing the OPA issues
She said Ramaphosa’s phrase that Malema played the ball and not the man was to deflect from addressing the issues raised and take personal offence instead.
“Ramaphosa’s theatrics were nothing short of a desperate attempt to sidestep the real questions. He did not deny the allegations of being an apartheid spy. Instead, he pathetically dragged his father into the conversation, whom CIC did not mention. This in order to manipulate and victimise himself,” said Mathys.
“The president had the audacity to question, ‘where were you?’ directed at the EFF. This from a man who has yet to answer where he was during Nelson Mandela’s inauguration. [Also] which side he was on throughout the apartheid era. It is Ramaphosa who must account for his whereabouts and actions,” Mathys added.
Ramaphosa had questioned the whereabouts of Malema when the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) was formed.
This after Malema attacked Ramaphosa’s formation of the union. He said it was to play the middleman between mineworkers and exploitative mine companies in South Africa.
It is reported that Ramaphosa became the first secretary of the union, four months after its establishment in August 1982.
NUM formation was collaboration with exploitative mining houses
He was also involved in the three weeks shutdown of the entire mining industry in 1987. It stands as one of the biggest and effective industrial strikes in the country.
Mathys said they demanded accountability and not history lessons from the President. She insists that they would hold him accountable.
“Ramaphosa’s decision to collaborate with the white supremacists enemy in a government of national unity further exposes his treachery. Along with the fact that he is the darling of the establishment.
“In February 2019, the EFF demanded a judicial commission of inquiry into Ramaphosa for betraying our freedom fighters. This call came after Ramaphosa admitted that the apartheid police had asked him to testify against liberation heroes like Terror Lekota,” said Mathys.
