EDWIN NAIDU
THE spokesperson for the Minister of Higher Education, Science and Innovation, Ishmael Mnisi, declined to comment on a Sunday report highlighting tension over media coverage of the minister.
According to the report, the minister, Blade Nzimande, expressed his frustration with what he sees as attempts to undermine him in the media.
Nzimande complained about being overshadowed by his second-in-command, Deputy Minister Buti Manamela, Director-General Nkosinathi Sishi, deputy director Lucky Masuku, and Mnisi himself when it comes to coverage in the media.
“Our view is that it remains an internal matter,” Mnisi told Inside Politics when asked about the reports.
An audio recording of the exchange was made public on social media, where the Minister can be heard asking whether someone was against him.
“Why? Is there someone with an issue against me in the department? I am never covered by the DHET wall. Never, yet I am the department’s chief spokesperson for both the Department of Science and Technology and the Department of Higher Education. Now I want an explanation here today as to why that is the case,” the minister said.
Nzimande can be heard telling his team that he felt let down by them, and it was creating tension between him and Manamela and Sishi, as this was not the first time it had happened.
Angering him further was the “embarrassing” lack of coverage of him when launching the country’s second computer laboratory.
“Here I am, the chief spokesperson of the department. Now I am not in competition, DG. We should never in the future have any functions competing with the minister’s functions, even with the deputy minister,” he said.
“I said when I start speaking, please go to the DHET wall right at the same time, and who is captured speaking is the DG. I do not have a problem with the DG being covered. But what the wall is doing is interchanging between the DG and the deputy minister. I was not covered on Friday, by the way,“ Nzimande said.
The Minister said it was not the first time he had been overlooked concerning coverage on the department’s wall.
“In many instances, I am speaking there, and the wall is covering the deputy minister. In essence, what the communication team is doing is deliberately causing tension between myself and the deputy minister by doing so,” he said, according to the recording.
On Sunday, Nzimande’s media team issued an advisory, saying that Nzimande will officially open the University of the Western Cape (UWC) Education Faculty precinct and the Unibell Student Accommodation on Monday.
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