EFF leader Julius Malema says that government should consider a wealth tax instead of increasing Value Added Tax.

Parliament is set to vote for the budget next month, after it was recently tabled by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana.

Malema says government should target the wealthy who don’t know what to do with their money.

He was speaking in Sharpeville, Gauteng where the party commemorated the Sharpeville Massacre.

“People buy buffaloes for R30 million and R50 million because they have got enough money, and they don’t know what to do with that money. They must deploy SARS in each and every auction in South Africa to monitor anyone who buys expensive animals and tax them heavily because they’ve got money to play with animals,” says Malema.

EFF Secretary-General Marshall Dlamini says the ANC must first negotiate with their GNU partners and “close that chapter” before they can consider negotiating with anyone outside of the GNU setup. He insists that even when the EFF would get into negotiations with the ANC about the budget, it would be on the basis of no VAT increase, but to look at other alternatives.

“So, people of South Africa must not be confused. Even the negotiations that we would get into with the ANC the first one would be to say let us look at alternatives. We will put them on the table,” adds Dlamini.

Human Rights Day | The people of Sharpeville are a “forgotten community”: EFF SG Marshall Dlamini

Meanwhile, Malema says South Africa’s youth have no reason to support the Government of National Unity (GNU) given the country’s unemployment rate.

Malema was addressing an EFF rally in Sharpeville, Gauteng where the party commemorated Human Rights Day at Dlomo Dam.

The EFF leader further accused the GNU of preserving poverty among black people.

“The youth of South Africa has no reason, non-whatsoever, to support the GNU. The GNU is a government of cowards who want to perpetuate the poverty of black people. Black people, especially black women, are the ones suffering under GNU. The unemployment is too high in South Africa to a level of 47%,” says Malema.

Malema says what happened in Sharpeville was not a massacre, but a declaration of war: