EFF leader Julius Malema wants North West Premier, Bushy Maape to account for implying his province has no service delivery challenges during the State of the Nation (Sona) debate in parliament, which sparked public outrage.
Malema led the Andries Tatane clean-up campaign in Lichtenburg in the North West on Friday and accused Maape of turning the challenges of the residents of the province into a mockery.
“I saw a lot of potholes, and there is no way that any person who is alive to the realities of the North West, who would have taken his medication before he spoke at the State of the Nation Address debate would have said what the Premier of the North West has said.
“He is an embarrassment, after that Sona debate, he should have not been allowed to enter the office of the Premier because he made a mockery of the suffering of our people here in the North West.
“There is no single person, even a factionalist of note, who should be defending the Premier of North West after what he did. We first have to accept that we have a problem in order to come up with solutions for dealing with that problem. But if we are going to be in denial that there is no problem in the North West. We will never look for solutions.
“I was shocked to see the Premier of the North West sitting throughout the Sona debate, other Premier’s come in the morning when it is their turn to debate because they will be seized with the problems of their provinces.
But because the problems of this province do not bother him, he saw that opportunity as a touring opportunity, which is why even when he spoke, he spoke like a person who just came from the sea. Who is aloof from the reality of the North West and that was very painful to listen to the nonsense that was said there in the name of the Premier,” Malema said.
In response to EFF members being forcibly removed from the legislature, after they demanded Maape apologise for his remarks at the Sona Debate, Malema said his members’ actions should be a wake-up call to the North West residents.
“There is no one who can sit and create an impression that things are normal. It is those types of actions that the EFF took yesterday, which then suggest to our people… looks like there is something terribly going wrong in the North West.
“The intention of yesterday was to wake our people up, was to say to our people this man must be held accountable for the nonsense he said about our province during the debate of the Sona,” he said.
