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Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande has defended his role in the #FeesMustFall saga that unfolded over the past few weeks as he fends off calls for his resignation.
Nzimande told City Press he was “not averse to being criticised, but I can’t take the blame for something I did not have the means to do”.
Nzimande has borne the brunt of student criticism for having failed to implement the ANC’s resolution of free higher education. The minister also took flak last week after it was revealed that he had allegedly deliberately withheld a 2012 report that found it would be feasible to introduce free university education for poor South Africans.
ANC Youth League president Collen Maine has openly called for the SA Communist Party (SACP) general secretary’s removal.
Following the announcement of no increases in nationwide student fees by President Jacob Zuma, Nzimande said a team from the presidency, as well as the ministers of finance and higher education, were working on details regarding the sourcing of funds.
“The work is still under way and the president also has to be briefed. The president said we have to find the money. That is all I can say,” he said.
Nzimande said blaming him directly for the lack of free education “is not fair criticism”.
The report he was accused of withholding was eventually released by his department this week after a Promotion of Access to Information Act application by a nongovernmental organisation.
Nzimande said that even the document his opponents claimed he had sat on did “not produce money”.
“We have a document on free education for the poor and how it can be implemented, but it does not mean that document can turn into money. The fact that we have not reached the goal of free education does not mean government is no longer committed to that goal.
“The report is not policy. The document was never secret. I was never sitting on it and had been engaging with stakeholders. It is malicious on the part of the people who are going to the papers and saying I was sitting on the document.”
ANC MPs on Tuesday sang Nzimande’s praises when Parliament debated the students’ demand for free tertiary education, saying “he was at his best”.
The SACP has insisted that nothing would happen to him and he would remain the minister of higher education.
The party said he could not be held solely responsible for government’s failure to move with speed on the issue of free university education.
The recent public spats over Nzimande’s future between leaders of both the SACP and the ANC prompted the scheduling of a bilateral meeting between the allies this week.
City Press heard that tensions boiled over at a tripartite alliance meeting on Tuesday, when SACP leaders protested against the “attacks” on Nzimande by people inside the ANC, including ministers and members of the ANC’s national executive committee.
ANC spokesperson Keith Khoza said at the meeting on Tuesday that it had been “agreed that the alliance structures should deal with these issues internally. We do not want to get entangled in [them].”
Discussions at this week’s bilateral meeting were expected to include the youth league’s Maine, who the SACP wants disciplined for his criticism of Nzimande.
League spokesperson Mlondi Mkhize said he could not see any grounds on which Maine could be charged with ill-discipline.
“Those who want [Maine] to be charged must tell us what he must be charged with,” said Mkhize.
The youth league insists Nzimande can be criticised like any other ANC minister, and should not take refuge behind his SACP credentials when taken to task.
