Statement by the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Professor Blade Nzimande, on the allegations contained in the two City Press articles

29 July 2024

The Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Prof Blade Nzimande has learned with utter disgust of yet another City Press article, published on Sunday, 28 July. As with the article published on 21 July, the latest article relies entirely on innuendo to suggest unethical conduct by the Minister without providing the slightest material evidence to support this smear story.

Minister Nzimande says,“For the longest of time the Naspers media has been seeking to tarnish my image through false stories, including outright lies and innuendo like in these instances. These apartheid era media outlets are trying a well worn strategy, that of repeating lies and false accusations in the hope that they will appear as the truth.

He added ‘‘In both instances the City Press did not even bother to seek my comment prior to publication, violating their own media code, this shows that this is nothing but a smear campaign representing the worst of gutter journalism. This is an agenda pursued by my detractors inside the Department of Higher Education and Training, some of whose elements are fighting back because I have not been tolerating incompetence, mediocre and below par performance in this department.

Together with my detractors in the broader ANC alliance, Naspers media, including the City Press, have become useful idiots and collaborators in the campaign to rubbish my name, for their own interests too. In all of this I fully reserve my rights”, said the MinisterNzimande.

In the article of the 21 July, the City Press relies solely on the version of a leaked document and nameless departmental sources and because the City Press journalist is not interested in factual reporting, he didn’t bother to verify the authenticity of the cited document and neither did he bother to reach out to contact the Ministerial Media Liaison Officer or the Department for comment on this matter.

Then in the latest article of 28 July, the City Press journalist sinks even deeper into gutter journalism and his own mediocrity by recycling an old story which he wants to present as something new or groundbreaking journalism. As far back as 2022, Minister Nzimande, publicly and calmly clarified the issues contained in the latest City Press story, and this explanation was given to the self same publication.

If the City Press journalist cared in providing readers with an objective and balanced account of the issue covered, he would have known that as far back as 2021, without external prompting and in his capacity as Minister of Higher Education, Science and Innovation, Minister Nzimande was the one who actually instituted a forensic investigation into the financial affairs of the Nationla Skills Fund (NSF) , after he learned that amounts of just under R5 billion could not be properly accounted for over two financial years.

Minister Nzimande further appointed a Ministerial Task Team (MTT) to conduct a strategic review of the NSF, its general operations and its efficiency and relevance with regards to the national skills priorities of the country.

He did not stop there. In 2022, he instructed the Department of Higher Education and Training to open a case at the Pretoria Central Police Station and engage the Hawks and other law enforcement agencies, including initiating internal departmental disciplinary processes to ensure that those responsible for corruption or irregular activities are held accountable.

The City Press journalist does another deliberately malicious thing. He writes that the ‘Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande wanted the report kept confidential‘. But the reporter deliberately fails to inform the readers the reasons why this was necessary at the time, so as to ensure that disciplinary and legal actions against suspected individuals were not jeopardised.

Clearly this way of reporting is a scurrilous attempt to imply a sinister motive and does’nt provide the reader with any context or background. Readers will know that in 2022, the Minister made exactly the same point.

In 2022, Minister Nzimande publicly refuted this lame insinuation by stating that “I never wanted to keep this report under wraps, but all that I requested was for the Standing Committee on Public Account (SCOPA) to treat this report in terms of rule 189 of the National Assembly, especially sub-rule (1) (c) read with sub rule (4) (a) that until all processes before the law enforcement agencies and internal departmental disciplinary processes in particular are concluded, premature release of the report could have jeopardised this“.

At the time, Minister Nzimande added “I have nothing to hide, but I have a duty, on my part, to follow due process in implementing the recommendations of the forensic investigation. We will implement these recommendations to the letter,”.

All this information is in the public domain and can be accessed through the websites of government or the Department of Higher Education and Traninig or the various presentations that Minister Nzimande made in Parliament on the governance issues at the NSF.

In fact, as far back as 2022, both the City Press and its sister publication, News24, were provided with this information and more, yet they pretend as if they are coming out with new information.

We also note how in both articles, the City Press deviously uses Minister Nzimande’s picture and blends this with smear by associating it with captions such as ‘Blade Accussed: Attempt to Capture SETA‘ and the latest one “Millions Looted‘. This is clearly calculated to cause damage to the reputation of the Minister.

“I remain unfazed and unshaken by the latest lame and devious attempts by the Media24 group to tarnish my name and dismiss both these articles as nothing else but StratCom type hogwash that is calculated to whip up public outrage against me and perpetuate a racist Media24 smear campaign that weaponises allegations against Black political figures and especially communists“ the Minister emphasised.

The Minister further stated that ‘‘I remain focused on my mission to drive our country’s science, technology and innovation policy agenda with the view of ensuring that we use science, technology and innovation to solve our most urgent national challenges such as poverty, unemployment and inequality.“

Issued by Veli Mbele on behalf of Department of Science, Technology and Innovation, 29 July 2024