Daily Dispatch

Act now on woman-beater

THERE have been many questions over the disgraceful assault by the Deputy Minister of Higher Education and Training, Mduduzi Manana, on a woman, Mandisa Duma, at a Johannesburg nightclub in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Most have revolved around why Manana was not jailed and criminally charged immediately, particularly so soon after the equally disgraceful attack by a group of six white men against a black woman at a fastfood drive-through in Pretoria.

In that case, four of the men were arrested within a day and duly brought to court and charged. A fifth later gave himself up.

But in Manana’s case, no immediate criminal action was taken against him, with police and prosecutors comically pointing fingers at each other.

But there is another question to be asked, which points to a severe ethical and moral failure at the highest levels of our national executive.

That question is why Manana didn’t resign immediately, and on his failure to do so, why he was not fired by the President.

The minister’s “apology” – couched in a context of “extreme provocation” – is clearly insincere and false because if genuine he should have resigned.

There are some who may try and use the now tattered and false adage that he must be considered innocent until proven guilty.

They are simply wrong. In a legal sense, innocence is not simply the opposite of guilty. When a court declares anyone accused of a crime to be “not guilty”, it is saying that guilt has not been proven beyond reasonable doubt, and not the accused is innocent.

Manana himself has acknowledged that he attacked Duma – although again he tries to lessen his culpability by saying he just slapped her – so the issue of whether or not he attacked a woman is not in question.

The fact is that Manana is a public executive.

He is a member of the Cabinet and his job is a high office in service of the public. More than that, his portfolio involves higher education and training, hardly a position to set an example of assaulting a woman during Women’s Month.

That means his position as a Deputy Minister is untenable, irrespective of any criminal judgment that may be passed.

The fact that Manana does not see any obligation to resign from his public position in such a circumstance office is a clear sign of his lack of ethical and moral stature.

The fact that President Jacob Zuma is able to express his “concern” over the matter by saying he is “disturbed” and then pass the ball to the police, leaving it in their hands, is even more shameful.

Again, the facts of the matter are not contested. Zuma has a Deputy Minister in his cabinet who launched by all accounts a vicious attack on a woman in a public place at a time the country is struggling to contain a plague of violence against women and children.

There should be no equivocation or handwringing. Manana must not be allowed to continue in his position.