Cape Town - The public protector is “destroying” black people, charged Sapho Mahilihili as he toyi-toyied and sang alongside 16 other protesters in front of the Western Cape offices of Public Protector Thuli Madonsela on Friday. The group demanded the office investigate apartheid corruption. Mahilihili said the focus on Nkandla was “misguided” and a “drop in the ocean” compared with white corruption “that lasted 400 years”.
He also took a swipe at Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa who, he said, had made an about-turn since founding the National Union of Mineworkers 34 years ago.
He “has jumped out of his black skin and is not a black person anymore”.
Black people in power were considered white because they were “collaborating with white capitalists, Mahilihili added.
The activist, who co-led the #FeesMustFall movement at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, shouted at Sune Griessel, the Western Cape public protector's representative, saying: “You don’t care about black pain. You’re neo-colonialists. When black people come here to ask that crime be investigated, you treat them badly.”
Griessel did not respond.
Mahililihili is also a member of political parties Black First Land First and the PAC, but on Friday he represented Black Solidarity Action, which hosted the protest.
Fourteen police officers blocked the entrance to the offices in Wale Street, while three Western Cape public order police vans parked nearby.
Public protector spokesman Oupa Segalwe accepted the protesters' memorandum.
Segalwe said the public protector was investigating whether the government was acting correctly by ignoring a recommendation to demand the return of R3.2 billion in corruption allegedly committed by the apartheid government. Segalwe said it would be inappropriate for the public protector to investigate apartheid corruption since it only dealt with post-apartheid maladministration or corruption by state institutions.
Weekend Argus