Minister of Higher Education and Training, Blade Nzimande launched a scathing attack on the media claiming that journalists were targeting Zuma and were providing slanted coverage of the government’s work.
“President Zuma’s achievements are enormous… yet at the same time, he is subjected to such attacks by the media… There is a very big offensive against our government with the president as a special target,” Nzimande said.
Nzimande, who attended the Progressive Professionals Forum in Midrand with Zuma, called on the organisation and others like it to defend the government and the president.
The forum was celebrating its first anniversary where it was addressed by Zuma and Nzimande.
There were sections of the media that wanted to bring about regime change in South Africa and the president was the main target, Nzimande said.
The forum’s president Jimmy Manyi echoed Nzimande’s sentiments saying that the media was focused on vilifying the government and ignored its positive achievements.
“The government has done a lot of good things, but sometimes it’s almost like the enemy is the enemy of the state,” he said.
Meanwhile, Zuma said South Africans sometimes forgot where they came from and that the country should celebrate the achievements of the past 20 years of democracy.
However, he said the government had not been able to do everything it aimed to do as this was not possible.
“I can say I haven’t seen programmes in many countries that religiously address and talk about the issues of the poor as we do,” said Zuma.
Other countries did not have programmes to improve the quality of life like South Africa had, including building roads and providing free housing to the poor, he said.
Zuma added that South Africa’s democratic government had created a free society and allowed the media to report freely.
Most recently the release of the ‘spy tapes’ that were part of the decision to drop more than 700 counts of fraud and corruption against Zuma five years ago have cast a spotlight on the president once again.
Further, the controversial upgrades to his private home in Nkandla continue to make headlines.
