Hlaudi’s college pep talk

ONCE powerful but now disgraced former SABC boss Hlaudi Motsoeneng yesterday swept up to Tshwane North College in a sleek grey Mercedes-Benz E500, saying he wanted to address a student gathering where disgraced former deputy minister of higher education Mduduzi Manana was speaking.

Motsoeneng stayed inside his luxury car waiting for the occasion to get underway‚ while leaders of the Congress of SA Students (Cosas) greeted him.

Once on the podium‚ Motsoeneng talked about everything – student issues‚ politics‚ the rand – and said that he knew nothing about education.

“I do not know anything about tertiary level‚ but what I know is I am very educated. I am very educated because you cannot define education by a certificate.

“There is a difference between certificated people and educated people‚ huge difference‚” he said to laughter from a trickle of students in the hall.

Motsoeneng said education meant changing people’s lives‚ but he had seen certificates in the offices and homes of people who had failed to implement transformation.

“If I cannot touch it and eat it‚ there is not transformation. “[But] I have done it‚ I have changed people’s lives in SA but they chased me away. They chase me away but I have my legacy there‚” he said.

Malesela Madisha‚ the campus chairman of Sasco, said Motsoeneng was not on their list of speakers.

He said their main speaker was Manana‚ who resigned from his position as deputy minister after a pub brawl where he was caught on video assaulting a woman.

“Motsoeneng approached us and asked for a platform to address the students and‚ because he is our comrade‚ we agreed‚” Madisha said.

Motsoeneng was fired from the SABC after he was found guilty of misconduct as chief operating officer. — DDC