2015-12-07 10:19
Sabelo Nsele, The Witness
Higher Education and Training Minisister Blade Nzimande during the launch of a skills programme in KwaDambuza Youth Development Centre. (Sabelo Nsele, The Witness)
Pietermaritzburg - Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande is "wary of a media plot targeting him" believing The Witness is part of the campaign.
Nzimande took a clear swipe at Media24, owned by multi-national conglomerate Naspers, for spearheading a plot to discredit him.
The Witness is owned by Media24.
And "white people" were also lambasted when he claimed white South Africans assumed their African counterparts were always corrupt.
The Pietermaritzburg-born Nzimande was speaking at the launch of a skills development programme at the Kwa¬Dambuza Youth Development Centre on Friday.
"That is the problem with white people. If you are black, they automatically think that you are corrupt.
"I am aware of a media campaign by the same white people who own Media24. They are targeting me. They have even bought one of our own, The Witness, to attack me," he said.
The Witness`s sister newspaper Rapport, recently reported that a community trust founded by Nzimande has received funding allocations worth nearly R11 million from two Sector Education and Training Authorities (Setas), of which Nzimande`s department is the custodian.
The report further said "a group of youths who`ve completed a construction learnership at the trust say their qualification is not worth the paper it was printed on".
Nzimande said the department would pump in R24 million rand into the KwaDambuza programme.
He said the programme would help more than 400 youths from KwaDambuza and more than 200 from Mpofana.
Nzimande said although "the department was doing much work to improve the lives of youth, funding is not enough for them to reach every corner of the country".
"We have to take care of both of those who pass matric and those who fail matric. We can`t leave those who have failed matric in the dark.
"That`s quite a lot for one department. That is why during the students` protest (#FeesMustFall) we said to the protesting students, we had nothing against the movement, but pleaded with the students to be considerate," he said.