By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has threatened legal action against government over the sale of the South African Airways (SAA) to Takatso Consortium.
Government’s plans to sell a stake in SAA to Takatso was announced after the airline was forced into business rescue in December 2019.
Malema used these strongly worded statements to describe the failed deal between the government and the Takatso Consortium, which was put on hold last week. Takatso is led by Harith chairman Tshepo Mahloele, who is also the owner of Arena Holdings, the publishers of Sunday Times.
Despite the withdrawal of the deal, Malema was adamant that they were in consultation with their legal team to reverse the deal saying it was part of a plan by President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government to privatise all the State owned enterprises in the country.
He was addressing the media this afternoon on the outcomes of the EFF’s national command council meeting held over the weekend.
“We have referred the matter to our lawyers to reverse the deal. You can’t sell an airline for R51. Not even a single plane costs R51 or a part of it. We are going to reverse the deal. SAA should not be for sale,” Malema said.
He said his party had observed that under the current government, the conditions of the people of South Africa were getting worse with rising levels of unemployment and poverty.
Malema commended those who rejected Ramaphosa at the Workers’ Day rally in Rustenburg earlier this month.
He said the activities on Workers’ Day earlier this month had demonstrated that workers in South Africa did not have any form of organised protection.
“Workers’ rejection of Ramaphosa and the ANC must be commended and repeated everywhere because the ANC has sold out the workers. The unions that have affiliated to the ruling party are led by careerists and aspirant business people who are controlled by factions in the ruling and different fractions of the capitalist class,” he said.
He said that as a movement whose primary interests lay in the liberation of the working class and poor people, “the EFF will not stand by and watch when workers are left defenceless because current union leaders are in bed with the ruling party and capitalists”.
Malema said many sectors of labour including the public service remained defenceless because there were no unions or the current “so-called unions” were controlled by the ruling class.
“We as the EFF will do everything possible to ensure that workers are better organised and defended by unions that are not in the pockets of capitalists and government,” he said.
Malema also praised the private investigators saying it was through them that breakthroughs in the investigations happened, leading to the swift arrests.
Philemon Lukhele, 47, Sipho Lawrence Mkhatshwa, 39, and Albert Mduduzi Gama, 52 are accused in relation to Gardee’s murder. They face charges of murder, rape, possession of an unlicensed firearm and ammunition, and conspiracy to commit murder.
“We [the EFF] are involved in the investigation, and we have employed private investigators. A majority of the people who are arrested were arrested through the private investigators’ intervention,” said Malema.
He added that one of the accused was incarcerated after the private investigators got wind that the accused needed money sent to his account to enable him to flee.
According to Malema, the accused requested an amount of R500 000, and having discovered this; the investigators alerted the police leading to the arrest.
Hillary Gardee went missing on 29 April. She was last seen at Nelspruit Plaza Super Spar in the central business district with her three-year-old adopted child.
The search for the missing Hillary Gardee ended in tragedy when her body was found in bushes near the Sabie/Lydenburg Road (R40) days after she went missing.