The ANC Youth League's provincial task team (PTT) in the Eastern Cape has come to the defence of embattled social development minister Bathabile Dlamini‚ saying if she is fired so should higher education minister Blade Nzimande for the problems engulfing his portfolio.
This was said by PTT convenor Mziwonke Ndabeni at a press briefing held at the party's provincial headquarters - Calata House in King William's Town.
According to Ndabeni‚ calls for Dlamini's head following the Sassa and CPS debacle were "opportunistic and premature". And for that matter‚ said Ndabeni‚ the department of higher education that is led by Nzimande‚ who is also the SA Communist Party leader‚ has problems of its own.
"There's crisis at higher education as we all know but nobody has said Blade Nzimande must resign‚" said Ndabeni. "Therefore we view calls for comrade Bathabile Dlamini [to resign] as an attack on the ANC Women's League which she is the president of and the position they are pushing of a female president [come the ANC conference in December]."
The SACP in KwaZulu-Natal recently called on President Jacob Zuma to show Dlamini the door saying "no amount of defence can eclipse the devastating effects with which she and her Sassa officials had plunged the country into the cusp of social malaise".
- TMG Digital/DispatchLIVE
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