Chamber of Mines should be ashamed over miners’ deaths: Malema

“One of the mines affiliated with you has killed our people in Marikana,” Malema said in reference to the 2012 Marikana massacre in which 44 people died during a week of unrest at the Lonmin mine, including 34 miners who were shot dead by police on August 16.

Malema was speaking during a march by around 20,000 people through the streets of Johannesburg against what the EFF leader had termed “white capital”.

Outside the Chamber of Mines, Malema accused South Africa’s mining sector of continuing to kill and exploit workers.

“Our people take risks when going underground and make this economy of South Africa to be what it is, yet no one is thanking them properly,” he charged.

“We come to you to say stop the retrenchment of workers and working with labour brokers,” Malema said.

He warned: “And we are going to have to take those mines and run them. If the ANC told you that we won’t, we are here to warn you to please stop listening to the ANC because here, in front of you, is the government in waiting.”

Malema had earlier called on the South African Reserve Bank to speak to the country’s banks over the issue of high bank charges, noting that people who withdrew cash at retailer Pick n Pay were not charged, but for the same transaction banks charged fees.

The EFF supporters had gathered at Mary Fitzgerald Square in Johannesburg on Tuesday morning. Buses with singing EFF supporters, many clad in the party’s signature red t-shirts, had arrived at the square throughout the course of the morning ahead of the march to the Reserve Bank, the Chamber of Mines and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange where the party was set to hand over memorandum with a list of demands at each of the institutions. - ANA