Maimane is ‘racist’ and the DA hates African women, says Bathabile Dlamini
In an opinion piece, the minister lashes out at the party and its leader over their perjury charges against her.
Then minister Bathabile Dlamini was held personally responsible for the Sassa crisis. Picture: Gallo Images
In a column in City Press, minister for women in the presidency, Bathabile Dlamini, accuses the Democratic Alliance (DA) of “blatant disregard for democratic constitutionalism” and attempting to “undermine African leadership”.
In the opinion piece, the minister confronts the Constitutional Court judgement against her in last September, which found that she was “reckless and grossly negligent” in her handling of the Sassa social grants debacle when she was Minister of Social Development.
The ConCourt also found that she must be held liable for 20% of the legal costs incurred over the Sassa scandal.
The minister says she has been silent deliberately out of respect for legal processes at the ConCourt, who ordered that the National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) must make a decision on whether or not the minister should be tried for perjury.
READ MORE: DA ‘shocked’ at Ramaphosa’s praise for Dlamini
Dlamini’s column, however, mainly sees her lashing out at the DA, who have laid perjury charges against her following the ConCourt judgement. They also released a statement about their decision to charge her with perjury in which they gave her the nickname “Dodging Dlamini”.
According to the minister, the DA’s decision to take former head of state Jacob Zuma to court must be understood in the party’s “colonial, anti-African context”.
Dlamini says DA leader Mmusi Maimane’s “threat to the president” – Maimane wrote a letter to Zuma in 2018 giving him “until the 15hth of October to do the right thing” – was because of his “racist, assumed incompetence of Africans”.
The minister also says the DA is “yet to shed its inherited hatred for and curiosity about African women”.
As evidence of this, Dlamini gives as examples the party’s “attempt to silence Lindiwe Mazibuko”, continuing to allege that the DA attempted to do the same thing to Mamphela Ramphele and Patricia de Lille.
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