We will nationalise oceans - EFF

Cape Town-10-10-2013 EFF leardership spoke to some of the students at UCT pix Patrick Louw story Mandi

Cape Town-10-10-2013 EFF leardership spoke to some of the students at UCT pix Patrick Louw story Mandi

Published Oct 11, 2013

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Cape Town - The Economic Freedom Fighters said that when they take power in the Western Cape from the Democratic Alliance, they will nationalise the oceans.

Addressing students at the University of Cape Town on Thursday, EFF regional co-ordinator Lephallo X Mohoto said there would no longer be fishing quotas under EFF rule.

“Here in the Western Cape, it is the maritime industry which is generating billions of rands per month,” he told students.

“Our mine is the sea, the output we get is the fish.

“We must get the fish and make sure we use it to the benefit of our people, we must just nationalise it 100 percent, and if we do, we will be practising socialism.

“If we nationalise it, then the people on the ground will benefit, not capitalists. These big companies come to Cape Town and they fish as much as they want and then when a normal or poor person goes to do the same, they are given a quota.

“We are saying we want to do away with such rules.”

Mohoto said the EFF would abolish the tender system.

“It has created black bourgeois, tenderpreneurs – we call those people amabhulu amnyama (black boere),” he said.

“The Black Economic Empowerment has only co-opted a few (black people) and put them up there and then they have concluded that we as black people have progressed in life.

“They take a few thousand people, then they eat on our behalf, then they are telling us we are OK.”

Student Faisal Garba said: “I think it (the EFF) having such a conversation on a very elitist and classist campus like UCT is important.

“It brings progressive discourse to a student body that is used to liberal ways of seeing the world. It was great to engage the EFF – explore areas of convergence and where we differ.

“It was a worthwhile event and I hope we will have more of such in the future.”

Referring to nationalisation, Faisal said: “It is a scary issue for many liberals who aspire to own property, but it is the only way to genuine equality if done under workers’ control and not under the control of elitists.”

The EFF, the brainchild of expelled ANC Youth League president Julius Malema, is gearing up for its official launch on Sunday.

The launch will be held in Marikana, in the North West, where 34 striking miners were gunned down last year.

The EFF received a certificate of registration from the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) on Monday, meaning they can now officially contest the upcoming elections.

Mohoto promised that the EFF would look after its voters.

“We as EFF are going to serve as the vanguard of the communities and the workers class struggle,” he said.

He added that the party would only consider members who truly believed in the EFF’s principles.

“We need to have a backbone, and we have seven cardinal pillars which are non-negotiable,” he explained.

“When you approach us, you must agree or don’t bother coming to us.

“We said we want from 50 to 60 percent of the mines and are not going to pay for it, our forefathers sweated for it.

“We will only export when the gold has been processed.”

He also referred to the EFF as a government in waiting, claiming they would take a million votes in the Cape.

Daily Voice

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