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Johannesburg — US investors will have to deal with state ownership of land if the EFF comes to power, party leader Julius Malema has told the American Chamber of Business.

“There is no wishy washy. You take it or leave it. We may even give you affordable electricity,” he told representatives of companies including Coca-Cola and Johnson & Johnson on Tuesday.

They would have to apply for 100-year leases, but residential property would not be affected. He tried to reassure his audience by saying the party respected the country’s laws and Constitution. “We’ve a highly qualified and credible judiciary. You shall be protected by the judiciary and not harassed by the political elite.”

There would be a state-owned mining company which would control, not merely own, the country’s mines. “We don’t want to be robbed here. We want to know what’s going in and out. It’s happening in Botswana. You can do it here.”

Whites would not be driven into the sea and property would not be destroyed, he said. The party’s robust way of debating, and honesty, should not be interpreted as hatred, he said.

“We come across as very radical and strong, but we’re very peaceful. We challenge you to the extreme so that you can offer something in return. Expropriation of land. You disagree? Offer something in return.

“We can’t live in this country without each other. We go to church together. We’re dating each other.”

He repeated the party’s call for Die Stem to be removed from the national anthem.

It was offensive, he said, and added that soldiers had sung it after committing “black genocide”.

Afrikaans should have a status equal to other languages and he questioned why Afrikaners wanted to create a “special place” for their language.

He said the replacement of mining minister Ngoako Ramatlhodi with former Free State agriculture MEC Mosebenzi Zwane was a sign of the corruption in the ANC and the Gupta family’s influence on President Jacob Zuma’s administration. He said Ramatlhodi was replaced because he had been interfering with the Gupta’s mining interests.

Malema said the payments made by Japanese power company Hitachi to the ANC, to get contracts for the Medupi and Khusile power stations, were merely the ruling party’s modus operandi.

“Well that’s how they operate. Hitachi is part of . . . [the] mess of the ANC which has turned the public purse into the purse of Zuma and the ANC,” he said. — AFP