ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula says he was asked by White House officials to give up some of the ANC’s redress policies, including BEE laws.
Mbalula slammed what he described as pressure from “Americans of President Trump” to scrap BEE, saying doing so would amount to “killing redress” and handing power to the DA.
“They say to us, these Americans of President Trump, we must do away with BEE. I said ‘you are asking us to close shop — you are saying we must kill redress, you are saying we must cede power to the DA — they must then be in charge, we are not them’.”
Addressing ANC members of Ward 106 during a branch general meeting on Sunday, Mbalula said the party’s participation in the government of national unity (GNU) would not mean abandoning transformation policies.
“Defining who we are in that government means we must fight for what is right. A sell-out position would mean giving up on the Bela Act [the Basic Education Laws Amendment Act],” he said. “We are not going to pass any law now easily. We’ve worked very hard. We’ve lost power as you can see even the budget doesn’t just flow; we have to wait because we have lost power.”
He cited the ANC’s loss of power to the DA in the Western Cape as a cautionary example.
“When our comrades got co-opted into the agenda of the opposition, the enemy saw that the ANC was weak. We are in coalitions in Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni and elsewhere, but we must not forsake our identity.”
TimesLIVE
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