SA Minister says it’s an honour to be likened to Mugabe

South Africa’s Minister of Land Reform Gugile Nkwinti today said it was an honour to be linked to Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.

Nkwinti said this during the debate for his ministry’s 2013/2014 budget. Freedom Front Plus MP Pieter Groenewald, had warned the minister he was “playing with fire” by whipping up emotions on the land issue.

“You are creating insecurity. I want to say to the honourable minister, you are creating a typical Zimbabwe situation. You are busy, before the election, to blame whites and apartheid (for the land situation),” Groenewald was quoted by the South African media as saying.

“You were right… about whipping up emotions, just like Zimbabwe. Yes, President Mugabe is the president of Zimbabwe, and here we have President Zuma. But he says we’re like him (Mugabe). That is a praise, by the way,” Nkwinti responded.

When opposition benches interrupted and heckled him, Nkwinti repeated:

“Yes, it is praise… he (Groenewald) says we’re like Zimbabwe. That is praise, thank you very much. It’s an honour. It is an honour. What did you expect? Would you have been happier if he had said, we were like the British colonialists who killed South Africans to take our land? Would that have been an honour?”

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