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Every mall should have rent-free space set aside for spaza shops, says Malema

Township spaza shop owners should either be given shares or space in township malls‚ which are bankrupting them‚ says Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema.

Malema addressed the annual conference of the South African Property Owners Association (SAPOA) in Cape Town on Wednesday‚ and did not mince his words about what the EFF would like to see from property owners in the future.

“When I was younger‚ there were many black-owned spaza shops in the townships‚ but the township shopping malls are putting them out of business. They must be given shares in these township malls and every mall should have rent-free space set aside for spaza shops‚” said Malema.

He made it clear that the EFF sees itself as the representative of the classes without property rather than of the audience he was addressing‚ and that systemic and lawful re-allocation of property was the only way to correct the systemic dispossession characterising colonial wars of conquest and apartheid.

South Africans too comfortable with ‘rampant’ corruption: Malema

Malema told the sometimes sceptical audience that it was in their interest to support the EFF‚ which he classed as the only true opposition to ANC state looting‚ which would kill the economy that property owners needed to thrive in order for them to succeed.

“The problem with liberation organisations is that they have nothing more to add after liberation. After that‚ they are out of ideas and expect people to vote for them simply because they had liberated them‚ as we see with the ANC currently‚” said Malema.

He called on property owners to agree to have the State act as trustee of all land‚ to be allocated to people for good usage in a non-corrupt manner‚ listing the example of a farm close to his home in Seshego which had been fallow for twenty years before being invaded and shared between the invaders and the owner.

The EFF leader ruled out working with the ANC in 2019‚ stating that the EFF would only join an opposition coalition if its terms of a state bank‚ nationalisation‚ expropriation and free education are met. Failing that‚ the EFF would give the opposition its support to at least stop the current ANC kleptocracy‚ said Malema.

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