'Knives out for Blade'

26 October 2015 - 02:23 By Piet Rampedi

The SACP has accused cabinet ministers of conniving to get rid of Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande over the student fees crisis. Solly Mapaila, the SACP's second deputy general secretary, said senior ANC leaders were using ANC Youth League president Collen Maine to attack Nzimande's handling of the protests to weaken him politically. He said this was part of a campaign to take over the ruling party at the ANC's national elective conference in 2017.Mapaila accused unnamed ANC politicians of bankrolling protesting students at Wits and Cape Town universities to make Nzimande "look bad".ANC spokesman Keith Khoza said last night: ''The ANC will not comment as we believe that if there are concerns we will raise these through existing channels of the alliance structures.''Last week Maine called on President Jacob Zuma to fire Nzimande, saying the SACP general secretary had failed to fund higher education adequately.Nzimande came under fire last week when students accused him of striking a deal with vice chancellors for a 6% cap on tuition fees for next year without discussing it with them. After their protest march outside parliament, students booed the minister when he tried to speak to them.Mapaila said some ministers condoned the students' unruly behaviour because they wanted Nzimande be fired."Of course that's the intention. If there's one fellow that has been forthright on transformation, it's Nzimande. They should find other reasons than [that to] fight him," he said.Mapaila's claims were echoed by a government official, who said some ministers had privately blamed Nzimande for the #FeesMustFall crisis, saying he had failed to implement fully the recommendations of a 2012 higher education report."Blade will be the first casualty. When his colleagues discussed the matter, they said he sat on that report and now the government is in trouble," the source said.Mapaila said the SACP advised Nzimande to present a funding proposal to the cabinet, not the Treasury, to expose ministers who were trying to hold him personally liable for "a problem of the revolution. If the cabinet dares reject the proposal, he must tell the public"...

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