Limpopo - The Limpopo ANC Youth League is “psychologically threatened” by President Jacob Zuma's comments that he and his family had paid for his Nkandla residence.
“The ANCYL... is psychologically threatened by the responses and emotional outlook by President Zuma in Parliament, when he claimed to have taken out a bond to finance the Nkandla... development,” provincial ANCYL spokesman Klaas Mabunda said in a statement on Friday.
“We are making a humble plea to all branches of the ANC to wake up and start closely monitoring the utterances of President Zuma, because... we are convinced that his incapability to lead the ANC... will be exposed by the man himself.”
Mabunda said the ANCYL was concerned over how much of the bond Zuma was paying back every month, because his salary was “public knowledge”.
On Thursday a clearly upset Zuma said he was “aggrieved” by media reports that the government had paid more than R200 million for his home.
“All the buildings and every room we use in that residence was built by ourselves as family, and not by government,” he said, responding to a question in the National Assembly.
“On TV, they showed the house that I paid for. And they lie that it has been built by government. It has not been built by government.”
Mabunda criticised SA Communist Party (SACP) general secretary Blade Nzimande after he backed the KZN SACP's call for a law protecting Zuma against insults.
“The South African Communist Party KwaZulu-Natal province went through steps of attempting to 'Zumafy' (sic) the country,” Mabunda said.
Nzimande backed the call made by his party in KwaZulu-Natal on Monday.
“People can differ with me and you can insult me as you like, but disrespect, that is not acceptable,” Nzimande, who also serves as the higher education and training minister, was quoted as saying by The Star.
“We are being undermined by whites.”
Mabunda re-iterated the ANCYL's position to support deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe for ANC president at the party's elective conference in Mangaung in December. - Sapa