Julius Malema has accused chief executives of banks and financial institutions of looting the country's mineral resources, and slammed BEE policies for empowering only the politically connected.
The ANC Youth League leader told hundreds of |students who packed an |auditorium at the University |of Limpopo's Medical University of Southern Africa (Medunsa) campus outside Pretoria yesterday that mining companies should be funding the country's social development programmes, particularly education.
Malema, who launched a youth league campaign to end the five-year-old merger between Medunsa and the University of Limpopo - "because the merger has failed" - said people should not be scared |of nationalising mines in |fear of driving away foreign investors.
Malema pointed to Venezuela and Chile as countries that had successfully nationalised some of their mineral resources, and urged South Africa to do the same.
"This BEE has failed to empower our communities. It has empowered individuals and the politically connected individuals.
"Some of us who have benefited, even if we have benefited, it (BEE) does not work. You can't have one individual accumulating such a lot of money when you have many individuals accumulating nothing," said Malema.
He singled out Absa chief executive Maria Ramos's multimillion-rand annual salary as an example of South African banks taking over resources that should be nationalised.
"How much was Maria Ramos given last year alone? Not less than R16 million, as an individual. You must check the CEO of Nedbank, Standard Bank, FNB. They have joined the league of the mine bosses.
"The financial sector, they are looting the resources for themselves as individuals. You can ask yourself how many RDP houses you can build with R16 million - well-resourced, proper houses, not matchboxes," said Malema.
He said banks, which were owned by white people, were in fact the owners of shares in mines because they funded black people to buy shares, through BEE, in mines.
"These blacks who are saying they are in mining, they own nothing, because for them to finance a deal in the mine they must be financed by the bank. Until you have serviced that debt in the bank, you will never get that share certificate. The bank is holding that share certificate. Effectively, the bank owns those shares.
"Who owns the bank? |It's a white male. What it means is that they continue to own, but in a different way," said Malema.
He added that foreign investors did not care about the safety of mineworkers, but were interested only in maximising profit.
"They are playing golf in London. They are obsessed with how much is coming into the account," said Malema.
He went on to say South Africans could "vote until you are purple? if you don't have economic power, that vote is meaningless".
Malema said that until |the government nationalised mines, it would never achieve free education for all.
"You can't speak about free education without getting an extra resource. The current fiscus has failed to give you free education.
"What it means is that if you introduce free education, you will have to go and look for extra resources.
"Where are these resources? They are beneath the soil of South Africa. That's where you must go and get extra money, that's where the money to finance free education is," Malema said to applause.
He said mining companies should fund financially stricken universities and students.
"If one mine takes over this university in terms of funding? they can pay for all of you and still declare a profit. The mines of South Africa combined make trillions a year, (but) the government budget for this year is almost R900 billion," said Malema.
He also spoke about the dangers of alcohol and HIV/Aids, and stressed that education was the only way for black people to liberate themselves.
"Ours is not to drive the minorities to the sea, |because South Africa belongs to all those who live in |it, black and white, but they (whites) were never oppressed," said Malema.