ANC Youth League (ANCYL) leader Julius Malema has dared the SA Revenue Services (Sars) to conduct a lifestyle audit on him, after the DA demanded his finances be scrutinised.
Malema told The Star on Monday he was not worried by the DA’s call.
The opposition on Sunday called on Sars to probe Malema’s income after a Sunday Independent report said the young politician was building a R16 million house in Sandton. Malema’s house will reportedly feature an underground bunker that he will use as a sanctuary if he is attacked.
DA MP Dianne Kohler Barnard had questioned how Malema could afford to build the mansion from the R25 000 monthly salary she said he gets from the league.
Malema said he would co-operate with Sars if the receiver wanted to probe his finances. “Sars conducts lifestyle (audits) on anybody as and when they wish to do that,” he said.
Malema refused to explain why he was building a bunker.
“My life and what I do with my house is not a public issue. I am not a public representative,” he said.
On Monday, Malema helped to build a house worth R200 000 from donations made by the local business people to a poor family in Mmakgatle village in the Sekhukhune district of Limpopo.
Meanwhile, the Chamber of Mines wants a meeting with the ANC Youth League to discuss its call for the nationalisation of mines.
Chamber of Mines spokesman Jabu Maphalala said on Monday it had written to the youth league last week asking for the meeting and was awaiting a response.
On Sunday, however, Chamber of Mines chief executive Bheki Sibiya became the latest high-profile target of the league.
Sibiya has been vocal in opposing nationalisation and recently criticised the withdrawal of the Black Management Forum from Business Unity SA.
Last month, Sibiya told Mining Weekly Online that the fight against nationalisation was “a battle not to be lost”. He reportedly said that the chamber would go all out to oppose any amendment to the constitution that was not in mining’s best interests.
In a press statement, the league labelled Sibiya a “pawn of white capitalists”, saying it was disappointed in black executives who defended white capitalist interests.
League spokesman Floyd Shivambu described the Chamber of Mines as an “evil organisation of mine bosses who have been the pillar of racist apartheid repression and enslavement of the black majority and Africans in particular for many decades”.
“They therefore hold no moral standing to say anything constructive in the rebuilding of South Africa in the post-democratic dispensation, even though fronted by individuals who do not know anything about the history of repression, segregation and brutal enslavement of our people in the mines,” he added.
Shivambu said the league was “utterly disgusted” by Sibiya’s “ventilations and rantings”. - The Star