The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Limpopo is calling on Premier Ramathuba to retract her divisive and inflammatory utterance and apologize to her fellow citizens for accusing them of being “imperial lobby groups”.
Premier Ramathuba went to Parliament in Cape Town and used that platform during the debate on President Cyril Ramaphosa’s annual address to the National Council of Provinces on Thursday, to labelled those who are raising concerns about the controversial and much-maligned Musina-Makhado Special Economic Zone (MMSEZ) as “imperial lobby groups.”
The Premier’s utterance is divisive, inflammatory, and portrays South Africans who care about fighting corruption and maladministration as less patriotic and less South African for rightly and legitimately airing their concerns. She must apologize.
This is classic ANC tactic directly from the Zuma years, and Premier Ramathuba is in fact proving herself to be a scapegoater
The fact is that legitimate and serious concerns have been raised by South Africans about the MMSEZ, including:
- Its potential disastrous impact on the environment and on other economic sectors such as farming and tourism;
- attempts by the provincial government to cynically circumvent the provisions of the National Environmental Management Act and its regulations;
- Concerns about water; and
- The destruction of protected trees, amongst other concerns.
As the DA in Limpopo, we share many of these concern and have called on the Limpopo government to engage in an honest and open conversation with stakeholders, including farmers, communities, and environmentalists, regarding the SEZ. These stakeholders deserve to be taken serious, and not called “imperial lobby groups”
Furthermore, we have called on the Limpopo Economic Development, Environment, and Tourism (LEDET) Portfolio Committee to urgently investigate the MMSEZ and summon the MEC for LEDET and the department to appear before the committee.