LISTEN | ‘We won’t go back to apartheid’: DA MP gets under Nzimande’s skin after MP tells him to resign

Quizzed by a DA MP on whether he was going to resign after his “failures”, minister Blade Nzimande retorted that apartheid would not return.

Frederik Jacobus Badenhorst said: “You had absolutely no impact on getting more female students into the STEM [subjects] in your last posting: are you going to double down on your failed strategies or is it time for you to step aside for somebody who is everything that you are not — progressive, honest, competent and, preferably, female?”

From 2019 Nzimande served as minister of higher education, science and innovation before his portfolio became science, technology and innovation when Ramaphosa appointed a new cabinet in July.

“I am not ashamed of the work that I have done, and that I was part of the transition that dislodged the apartheid regime which to me personally was one of my biggest achievements because this country would not be where we are and we are not going to allow a situation where those are still looking back they want to draw us to go back — we are no longer going back” Nzimande replied.

“Even as the ANC we might have gotten 40% [in the May 29 elections], yes it’s a setback but we are not going to allow our country to redress. I don’t understand the importance of your question — are you asking the president to appoint somebody else? I’m glad he’s unlikely to listen to you.”

Ministers from the social service cluster were answering questions in parliament. This was the second-last question posed to Nzimande on Tuesday afternoon in the question-and-answer session. 

Nzimande continued highlighting that the country needs to look forward and not backwards: “You need to be liberated — whatever skill you have should be contributing to advancing black women and so on. I don’t want to talk about my previous portfolio necessarily — I’ve done relatively well — I expanded NSFAS through billions of rand, reached millions of students, we’ve attracted more students to vocational education — the apartheid regime had it in law that a black person can’t be an artisan.”

The minister said that, like the DA with the Bela bill, the apartheid government wanted to use Afrikaans-speaking schools as exclusive schools for white Afrikaners, saying this was why former president FW de Klerk pulled out of government of national unity at the time. “This is why they [DA] are fighting about the Bela bill — it's that battle that they lost.”

A visibly irritated Badenhorst heckled Nzimande.

Zimande concluded: “You are trying to appropriate language to use it to hide a whole range of things that do not belong to South Africa. I'm glad I've answered you and I'm done with you. I'm looking forward, we have a better South Africa to build.”

Much of MPs’ questions and address by Nzimande foregrounded the inclusion of women and girls in the science fields.

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