The ANC is misleading people when it suggests that it can expropriate land without amending the constitution, National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) general secretary Irvin Jim said at the weekend.
Jim was speaking at the Nangoza Jebe Hall in New Brighton at the funeral of former trade unionist Fieldmore Langa.
Jim accused President Cyril Ramaphosa of entering into an agreement with capitalists during the negotiations to end apartheid which would allow them to retain SA’s wealth.
“When Cyril led negotiations, there was a settlement negotiated with capitalists that they would give us political power and we’d vote every five years but the economy remained [theirs].
“They welded that through that bourgeoisie constitution – through Section 25 C that stated if you want to expropriate land, you will replace it value by value,” Jim said.
Jim said Langa was clear that until the land question had been addressed and land expropriated without compensation there would be no freedom in SA.
“If your land is not back to its people, there is no freedom,” Jim said.
During his tribute, Jim said Langa demanded, as did he, the full implementation of the Freedom Charter, in particular, the economic clause that stated ownership of mineral wealth beneath the soil, banks and monopoly industries be transferred to the people.
“There is no solution in this country unless concentration and centralisation of wealth in the hands of white monopoly capital is destroyed.
“Until such a time that we nationalise commanding heights of our economy, address ownership and control of the economy and affirm blacks and Africans in this economy in a way that will change power relations in society, there will be no non-racialism and non-sexism and democracy.”
Langa, a former ANC antiapartheid activist, died on August 16 in Motherwell.
He joined the ANC at an early age and went into exile in Angola in 1977, and became a member of Umkhonto we Sizwe and the SACP before returning to the country in 1991.
He was a Numsa local organiser and became the Eastern Cape regional educator. He was also instrumental in building the United Front.
The funeral was attended by former Nelson Mandela Bay mayors Nondumiso Maphazi and Zanoxolo Wayile, who was also the MC.
DA provincial leader Nqaba Bhanga was also in attendance and obliged when he was requested to sing a “revolutionary” song.
Wayile thanked Bhanga for how the municipality assisted Langa’s family with the hall and traffic officials who closed off a section of Moduka Road in New Brighton.
Looking to Bhanga, Jim said the immediate challenge following Langa’s funeral was to win back “this municipality for our people”.
Jim said the metro should return to the township as residents’ taps were being turned off and electricity switched off by the DA-led coalition.
“The DA is a right-wing political party. It’s the political axis of the ruling class and the DA will never support expropriation of land without compensation. They will never do that,” he said.
Other speakers included South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi, who said Langa understood that apartheid was not just a racist tyranny but class oppression rooted in the worldwide capitalist system that exploited all workers despite race.