EFF president Julius Malema has given the party five years to build a new school.

Malema was addressing delegates during the end of the party’s elective conference in Nasrec.

Malema vowed that should the party not build a new private school, they would have failed in its mandate.

He undertook that the newly-elected leadership will make the project one of their priorities.

The school would be situated in Alexandra.

“Comrades, I want us to build a private school that is owned by the EFF in these next coming five years. We are going to hire highly qualified teachers and kids will learn free of charge and it will be kids of poor people, child-headed families, people dying from HIV/AIDS.

“I don’t understand why (Cyril) Ramaphosa, Patrice Motsepe, Robert Gumede and Siza Ngebulana don’t have their own schools. Fighters, if we don’t build that school in the next five years don’t re-elect us next time because we would be useless,” he said.

He also questioned why big companies like MTN and others are not building schools for poor children.

Malema promised that the school would be in the standard of other popular private schools in the country.

The EFF school will employ teachers from South Africa and Zimbabwe, among other African countries.

“The school will be built in Alexandra and we will buy the land properly and fit it with all amenities. We will even go to Zimbabwe to get the best teachers to teach our kids if whites don’t want to.”

He questioned why international media mogul and businesswoman Oprah Winfrey built a private school in South Africa while local businessmen and women failed to do so.

“Why should Oprah come and build a school here? We are not a charitable country. We like what she did and has inspired us. I want to see kids of the poor flourishing. I am a child of a domestic worker. My mother suffered epilepsy and she could not do anything for me.

“But, people saw potential in me and groomed me. We stayed in a shack and slept without food. I used to run to her when she came back from work carrying leftovers. I know what poverty does to our people,” said Malema.

He said no white person can tell him about growing up in poverty.

“My life changed because someone said he can change the life of this man. It shouldn’t be easy to align with people who want to destroy a black child,” he said.

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