Malema accuses Ramaphosa of outsourcing responsibility of govt to private sector

EFF leader Julius Malema has accused President Cyril Ramaphosa of outsourcing the responsibility of government to the private sector.

Sona 2022

Reacting to Ramaphosa’s State of Nation Address (Sona) on Thursday evening, Malema said the president’s views about government not being solely responsible for job creation, and the appointment of former mining executive Sipho Nkosi to lead a team tasked with cutting red tape across government, was an indication that Ramaphosa was outsourcing the responsibilities of government to the private sector.

“Generally they have outsourced the responsibility of governing our people to the private sector,” Malema said outside Cape Town City Hall.

The EFF leader said Ramaphosa’s views about government not being responsible for creating jobs, was the president expressing a vote of no confidence in his leadership and government.

“He has passed a motion of no confidence on himself after promising millions of jobs. Now he says government cannot provide jobs, jobs must be provided by the private sector… and in the manifesto of the ANC – which made him a president – it committed [to] provide jobs,” he said.

ALSO READ: Former Exxaro CEO to tackle government red tape

‘Lacklustre’ speech

In a statement on Friday, the EFF described Ramaphosa’s Sona as “lacklustre” and said it was a reminder of the “blatant incompetence of a man who makes empty promises”.

“The fact of the matter is that South Africa is in a state of collapse, and no meaningless appeals for solidarity to fix problems created by government, will change the dark reality for the black majority in this country.”

The Red Berets said last year’s July riots and the fire at Parliament in January – as well as other national key points – was an indication that there is no state security in South Africa.

“Ramaphosa has pretended to be taking matters into his own hands, by placing state security in his office, yet repeatedly shows his state has no intelligence capacity.

“This further proves the point that placing state security in his office and in the hands of his cronies, is nothing but a way to utilise slush fund money to fund his leadership battle in the ruling party.”

SOEs

The EFF said the only thing Ramaphosa had done successfully was destroy the country’s state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in order to ease their privatisation.

“This is why Ramaphosa makes nonsensical statements that the private sector bears the responsibility of creating jobs, while government must only create an environment friendly to this. He cannot conceive of the state being at the centre of our developmental efforts, because in his feeble mind profit equates development.

“We must come to grips with the fact that under Ramaphosa, this country is on a free fall and by the end of his term, we will not have a country to inherit.”

Compiled by Thapelo Lekabe

WATCH: Move! – EFF clashes with police outside City Hall