He quoted from the Bible, ripping into what he called ‘the Goliath of our time’.
PRET leader Themba ‘Masofa’ Sgudla has told scores of PRET members during a funeral over the weekend that they needed to be wise enough to realise the power in them to take on ‘the Goliath of our time’.
Praising President Cyril Ramaphosa for his Thuma Mina campaign, the Mpumalanga multi-millionaire said it was worrying that in the ANC there were still leaders who “claim to understand society but do not”.
Sgudla said the ANC was formed to give power to the society but if they see that this is no longer happening they will have to realise their power and “start to turn the situation around”.
“How do you go and tell people about the glorious movement while yourself you don’t understand it?” he asked at the hall.
“You want to lead the branches of the ANC, you want to be a councillor but you are not connected to the same people that you want to lead. You don’t know them and they don’t know you,” Sgudla said.
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Beginning by quoting Matthew 16 verse 13 to 18 where Jesus asked his disciples who people said the Son of Man was, the disciples said a lot of things which were not really who Jesus was, Sgudla said only Simon Peter was able to say who Jesus really was.
“Because Jesus realised that the same people they were leading or purported to be leading didn’t know who exactly he was, he warned them not to go around telling people who the Son of Man was. How do you go and tell people about Jesus while you yourself don’t know who he is?” Sgudla asked while on stage.
He then told the residents that that’s what exactly was happening in our community “the ANC being led by people who don’t understand it” and as a result do not understand society.
Sgudla had donated towards assisting the family of 38-year-old taxi driver Solly Buthelezi who died on 8 September 2018 after a short illness.
The taxi driver’s funeral was held at the Lynnville community hall in eMalahleni at the weekend, attracting scores of PRET members who sang struggle songs and said they were connected to Buthelezi who died a poor man. He was a PRET member.
Sgudla said that even Peter himself didn’t know who exactly Jesus was until that was revealed to him “not by flesh and blood but by the holy spirit when he said to Jesus you are the Son of the living God”.
“That’s after Jesus had asked them ‘if that’s what people say of me, what do you say I am’,” Sgudla said.
He said today in the ANC you have leaders who got elevated to power using the “Unity ticket but come and see what they are doing here in Mpumalanga”.
“They dictate to the same community who the community must elect. See, it’s no longer about the community now but about themselves,” Sgudla said to applause.
He said society needed leaders who will have the cries of the people “revealed” to them just like Ramaphosa who through his Thuma Mina campaign “realised that something is wrong and let me be there when the people start to turn it around”.
He said society was today led by a Goliath and it needed to do exactly like David who realised that “the power is in my hands” did.
He also lambasted the dirty hand that removes vulnerable people who had applied for housing from the housing list and “put their own”.
He also ripped into the system of tenderpreneurs who received work from government but were forced to pay certain percentages to “a Goliath” and ended up owing SARS.
“If you don’t do so, you don’t get the next project,” the outspoken businessman said to thunderous applause. “And really those are not the leaders that society wants. Society needs leaders like Ramaphosa who will say send me and I wanna be there to solve people’s problems”.
“The President says send me to the people, send me to the nation because people are suffering, because taxi drivers are suffering and don’t have houses of their own,” Sgudla said while on stage
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“Now Ramaphosa says send me but I’m realising danger at the same about people’s power.
“If leaders do not know people and people complain to the ANC and leaders do not understand the ANC, where must the people take their problems to?
“Yesterday other provinces in the country were so impressed about the unity of our province when we nominated ‘Unity’ but look today the same person is dictating to the same people that elected him who must succeed them,” the businessman said.
He was accompanied by daughter Sinentokozo Sgudla who he says “is grooming to connect with the people” and a score of regional and sub-regional PRET leaders also formed part of the funeral.
The funeral saw scores of PRET members marching and chanting to the Old Pretoria Road Memorial Park, brandishing guns and firing shots in the air as a “tribute to Solly”.
Scores of taxi drivers attended the funeral and described Buthelezi as a very good person and said it was unfair that he had to be “defeated to death by the sickness”.
(edited by ZK)
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