The President of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) Joseph Mathunjwa has taken a swipe against the President Cyril Ramaphosa for his alleged involvement in the murder of the 34 Marikana mineworkers in 2012 and his continued disregard of the event.
Mathunjwa was delivering a keynote address at 13th Marikana massacre commemoration attended by thousands of miners and families of the victims and injured miners at the Koppie outside Nkaneng informal settlement in Marikana near Rustenburg in the North West on Saturday.
He said that Ramaphosa deliberately chose the 15th and 16th as the date for the National Convention to snub the Marikana massacre.
“Comrades the National Dialogue, is another concomitant action to undermine the massacre. On August 15, 2012, at 14:58 Mr. Cyril Ramaphosa sent an email demanding concomitant action against striking workers.
“Thirteen years later the same Mr. Cyril Ramaphosa convened another concomitant action on August 15, 2025, under the auspices of the National Dialogue.
“How can we allow these politicians to create a political crisis then give them a platform where they masquerade as leaders seeking solutions?” asked Mathunjwa.
He said that Ramaphosa has failed to honor his commitments he made regarding the Marikana massacre and compensate the injured miners and families of the victims.
“As we remember that we have campaigned that August 16 be made a holiday for all workers in South Africa.
“Those demands were escalated to the current sitting President and to come and apologies to the widows and the working class in general since he made those commitments eight years ago but even today, he hasn’t made any effort to do so,” said Mathunjwa.
The AMCU President told widows and children of the massacred Marikana ex-miners that the then government was defending the interests of investors rather than improving the lives of workers, particularly Marikana miners.
“The Marikana Massacre exposed the hypocrisy in our constitutional democracy. The significance of the massacre was beyond salary issues and had uncovered political and economic interests and it revealed that the government was a gatekeeper for foreign interest under London mining (Lonmin) now Sibanye. The Marikana massacre has been characterized as a tipping point that unraveled the political fog road in South Africa. The Marikana massacre was a manifestation of a failed state that killed striking workers on August 16, 2012,” said Mathunjwa to the excited crowd.
He called for a change in the country’s political system, calling for a two-party system.
“South Africans are confused by a chaotic political system, where the political elite are more concerned with self-preservation than the interests of the people of the country. South Africans, how do you expect 609 political parties to agree on a single political agenda? This country requires a political reset, we need a two-party political system with the Labour party on one side and opposition party on the other side. We are tired of too many political parties in Parliament,” remarked the AMCU President.
He argued that the move would save the country a lot of money, which can be redirected to service delivery rather than being spent on politicians and their parties.
“We will save billions of rands through reducing the number of funded political parties from the fiscus.
“Comrades, this country is bleeding billions of rands with many political parties, if we can reduce this number of parties we can put the money to better use.
“We are tired of a constitutional democracy, we need a Presidential democracy, and the President must be elected directly by the people, with powers returned to the provinces for self-governance,” added Mathunjwa.
