Minister of Higher Education and Training Nobuhle Nkabane. (Photo: Phando Jikelo / RSA Parliament) 
“Performative politics” is how African National Congress (ANC) Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula described the actions and conduct of the Democratic Alliance (DA) in the ongoing saga around Higher Education and Training Minister Dr Nobuhle Nkabane.
Addressing journalists on Monday, 7 July, at the party’s Luthuli House headquarters in Johannesburg, Mbalula said: “We reject in the strongest terms the Democratic Alliance’s opportunistic laying of criminal charges against the minister.”
Nkabane, from the ANC, has come under fire for appointing ANC-linked individuals as chairs of 21 Sector Education and Training Authority (Seta) boards.
She rescinded the appointments, but the DA opened a criminal case against her for alleged fraud and misleading Parliament.
Read more: DA lays criminal charges against Nkabane over ‘lies’ to Parliament in Seta scandal
Nkabane claimed an independent panel led by advocate Terry Motau had advised her to make the appointments, but Motau denied chairing the panel, and most of the other panellists were from her department.
Mbalula said on Monday, “The DA’s conduct is not grounded in legal principle but in performative politics. While gang violence and systemic inequality devastate communities in the Western Cape, the DA will rather misdirect police resources towards a political vendetta.”
The ANC and DA were once political rivals, but now work together in the Government of National Unity (GNU) in the seventh administration. But this has not stopped the fighting between the parties.
Read more: Lack of political chemistry between SA leaders spells big problems for the GNU
“No law in this regard has been broken in our view, and no lie was told,” said Mbalula.
Ministers were held to account “in terms of the checks and balances of our Constitution on such matters to Parliament.
“An error was made and owned. That’s what we have come across. Accountability was demonstrated by the minister. Corrective action has been taken.
“We believe that the minister must continue to serve the people of South Africa with integrity, humility and a deep commitment to the values of democratic governance,” said Mbalula.
‘ANC endorses lying’
In response, the DA national spokesperson, Karabo Khakhau, said: “The Democratic Alliance is astounded that the ANC secretary-general has declared the ANC’s full and unconditional backing of lying Minister Nkabane.
“Nkabane misled Parliament, with a scheme of deception to conceal grand cadre deployment corruption. The ANC has today endorsed and approved lying to Parliament to keep cadre deployment under cover. This is a profound moment; it has shades of Nkandla all over again — the ANC again defends the indefensible.
“We remind the ANC that Ministers Nkabane and [Thembi] Simelane are officially under criminal investigation by the state, not the media or the opposition.”
Read more: Educated for leadership and engulfed by scandal, Minister Nkabane faces her sternest test
Double standards?
Journalists asked Mbalula about President Cyril Ramaphosa’s removal of the former deputy minister of trade, industry and competition, Andrew Whitfield, who was fired after he went on an overseas trip that wasn’t sanctioned, versus his lack of action against ministers such as Simelane.
Following Whitfield’s firing, the DA gave Ramaphosa an ultimatum to also axe ANC ministers implicated in wrongdoing. He didn’t, and the party announced it would not participate in the National Dialogue.
Simelane, the human settlements minister, received a “loan” from a suspect charged with the looting of VBS Mutual Bank, as revealed in Daily Maverick and News24 investigations. Mbalula said she had appeared before the ANC’s Integrity Commission.
“The Integrity Commission has done its work and will report to the NEC [National Executive Committee] next week,” said Mbalula.
Mbalula said the “President will act against any other minister in government; that is his prerogative, and he will inform us as the party.
“In the ANC, ministers get to be guillotined. I’m using an extreme word, ‘guillotine’, and they don’t even get to be told why.”
As Daily Maverick’s Victoria O’Regan reported, the President has asked the DA to name a replacement for Whitfield.
Mbalula claimed on Monday: “They [the DA] wanted to collapse government on the basis of that, and then they started to point fingers to their colleagues in Cabinet and all of that.” DM