Cosatu slams Orania’s digital currency plan

Illustration: Wikipedia

Illustration: Wikipedia

Published Jul 28, 2017

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Kimberley - Cosatu on Thursday slammed the town of Orania in the Northern Cape, calling its plans to digitise the local currency, the Ora, “a slap in the face of government”.

The Afrikaner stronghold is planning a new “digital currency” version of the Ora.

Cosatu’s Gosalamang Jantjies said yesterday that the federation was “angered by the intensifying racism in Orania that seeks to undermine the democratically elected government”.

“Their portrayal of Orania as a country instead of a town in South Africa and their resistance to be incorporated into Thembelihle Municipality is a clear indication that the residents of Orania do not belong to this beautiful Province, let alone the country. These very same people use the rail and roads of our Province and country to transport their farm produce as well as their goods and families.

“We are of the firm view that the time is now for government to act with agility against this behaviour and ensure that these untransformed Afrikaner offsprings are incorporated into our society and abide by the laws of the country. ”

Orania, which is located along the Orange River in the Northern Cape, was founded in 1990 and currently has around 1 500 inhabitants. File picture: Boxer Ngwenya/ANA Pictures

Jantjies further called on the people of the Northern Cape to start debating and planning action to enforce transformation in Orania.

“We cannot be held hostage by a bunch of hypocrites who want to selectively exclude themselves from the broader society while they use South African markets to sell their produce. If they want to exclude themselves from the broader South African population they must be made to pay heavily for their use of the land’s infrastructure,” he said.

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