EFF's Malema: ‘The rich must pay for water and electricity subsidies’
EFF leader Julius Malema has proposed that wealthy South Africans should subsidise water and electricity for poor households, arguing that monthly payments for essential services are unaffordable for many.
Speaking at the EFF’s second plenum, in Boksburg, Malema linked the proposal to South Africa’s apartheid history and framed it as a matter of economic justice.
He compared the provision of basic services to the country’s education system, where poor children received free schooling.
“Paying monthly for water and electricity is not feasible for poor people,” Malema said, adding that such services should be subsidised.
“We need to make sure someone pays, and who is that someone? The rich must pay for the poor because the rich have stolen from the poor and it is time they pay back.”
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In his address, Malema identified whom he believes should bear the cost.
“Who are the rich? The rich are the whites, the rich are the politicians, the businessmen who have left us in poverty in the townships. They must pay for those who are in the villages, and the townships who cannot afford,” he said.
Malema said his vision was for a country where wealthier citizens actively supported efforts to lift others out of poverty.
“We need a country where the rich must be fighting for the poor to come out of poverty, so that their payments can go low and those who were in poverty yesterday are now at a position where they too join the paying crew,” he said.
He also linked the proposed higher costs for affluent households to South Africa’s history of racial exclusion under apartheid.
“Through making the rich pay high water and electricity bills, they will be paying for the benefits they got during apartheid when we were excluded from benefiting from our own government,” Malema said.
Malema described the issue as central to the EFF’s political agenda.
“It’s an important discussion that we need to take up as the leadership of the EFF,” he said.