Ekurhuleni mayor Mzwandile Masina has seemingly made a U-turn on his comments about supporting the fall of the "white economy".

Addressing the co-operative governance & traditional affairs portfolio committee in parliament, Masina denied supporting EFF leader Julius Malema’s comments that the white economy should be allowed to collapse.

In a tweet on Monday, Masina attacked an article headlined “let the white economy collapse, says Malema”

“I fully agree with my friend on this one @Julius_S_Malema. Until we nationalise all commanding heights of the economy- we need to restart this economy and make sure it favors the majority. Things can’t be sane again, [sic]” Masina tweeted.

But during Wednesday’s meeting, Masina seemed to backtrack, saying that his support for Malema was in relation to the nationalisation of the commanding heights of the economy and not for the collapse of the “white economy”.

Masina was asked to clarify himself by DA MP Mohammed Haniff Hoosen, who had labelled Masina’s comments “childish”.

“What I said, which you can go and check on my tweet ... then you must tell me whether that amounts to what you are saying.

“I said in my tweet, and I wrote it myself, I said ‘nationalise the commanding heights of the economy’. If that is racist according to you, you must think again and I think that it’s an unfair comment,” said Masina.

He said people got excited by newspaper headlines. 

“I had attached what member Malema had said in a statement. I then qualified the specific thing where me and him agree and I am not going to take that back.

“That does not mean or it’s not reduced to disrupting white business and so on. I was not party to that conversation,” said Masina.

He challenged members to check his tweet, saying that he had qualified his views and that he was not confused.

“[What I said] on nationalising the commanding heights of the economy, I stand by that. And that does not amount to racism or killing white business people.

“White monopoly capital as a system is what we need to address here, and unfortunately that’s the term we are using, but I have never advocated for racism or killing of white business,” said Masina.

He said he had a lot of white business people he is friends with. 

But DA MP Mike Waters rebutted Masina’s comments, saying that he was misleading parliament on the matter. 

“The mayor starts his tweets by saying, ‘I fully agree with my friend on this one ... the fact is Mr Mayor, you fully supported your friend Julius Malema on this article and you even took a picture of the article and posted it with your tweet,” said Waters.