Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula has slammed radio personality Gareth Cliff for comments he made questioning the funeral costs of deceased Bafana Bafana and Orlando Pirates goalkeeper and captain Senzo Meyiwa.
While the official provincial state funeral was unfolding at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban on Saturday, Cliff, who is known for making inflammatory statements, came under fire from social media users after posting on his Twitter account that: “Who's paying for this massive funeral for #SenzoMeyiwa?”
The tweet clearly angered most users who responded with a flurry of insults and accused Cliff of being ‘racist’ and ‘insensitive’ for asking such a question while the nation was still mourning. The users then asked Mbalula to comment and the Minister was his usual outspoken self, saying in Xhosa 'leave him (Myekeni) he is ‘suffering from a Verwoerd hangover.’
Mbalula has since deleted the tweet from his timeline.
Cliff, who has already assured on his personal blog that he will not apologise for his twitter comments, hit back on Monday saying: “I was called every kind of vulgar thing by a horde of the least eloquent, most furious, marauding lunatics I didn’t know, and who couldn’t have all known Senzo either.”
Meyiwa was honoured with a state-funded official provincial funeral on Saturday (funded by the KZN government) after he was shot dead last week Sunday and the social media users clearly thought it was 'stupid' of Cliff to ask such a question. President Jacob Zuma had declared that South Africa's national flag be flown at Meyiwa's funeral.
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