Durban - The EFF has boycotted the debate on KwaZulu-Natal Premier Sihle Zikalala’s State of the Province address.
It accused the ANC of undermining the constitutional review committee on land expropriation, which is holding public hearings in the province this week.
On Thursday, EFF provincial chairperson Vusi Khoza arrived alone at the full sitting of the legislature in Pietermaritzburg and said his MPLs would not participate in the debate. The red berets have eight MPLs.
Khoza then walked out, saying the debate and Friday’s budget speech should have been postponed to allow MPLs to attend the committee’s debate, which deals with amending section 25 of the Constitution in order to allow the land expropriation without compensation to be passed and implemented.
“As the EFF, we are not going to dignify this sitting when our people are crying out for land.
“We are going to leave this house to lead our people in the constitutional review hearings,” said Khoza.
He later told Independent Media the ANC, as the ruling party, should have facilitated the postponement of the debate and budget speech, to be delivered by finance MEC Ravi Pillay on Friday, to another day.
“They programmed a sitting, which could have waited, in order to clash with the hearing on the constitutional review that would lead to the amendment of section 25, which would give the government the right to expropriate land without compensation.
“To demonstrate that the ANC has lied to our people, and that they have no conviction and they are not prepared to make sure that land is expropriated, they organised this sitting,” said Khoza.
He said the EFF MPLs would “go on the ground” to mobilise members of communities to attend public hearings and make their presentations.
“Today the sitting (of the committee) is in Mtubatuba at 2pm, tomorrow it is in Vryheid at 2pm, on Saturday it is in Ladysmith at 11am and on Sunday it is in Kokstad at 11am.
He said the review committee had announced the date of the hearings in the province “a month ago”, which should have given the parliament enough time to reschedule its sittings.
Zikalala dismissed Khoza’s concerns. He said that ANC leaders were all over the province, unlike the EFF, which does not have enough leaders to be deployed to various programmes.
“They were part of the process to agree about the plan (of the sittings),” said Zikalala, who is also the ANC provincial chairperson.