Tito in new tweet storm

FINANCE Minister Tito Mboweni has yet again found himself under fire on Twitter, after publicly criticising the University of Pretoria’s move to phase out Afrikaans as the official medium of communication on all its campuses and at residences.

The institution will from now on use English as its primary language. Reacting to the decision, Mboweni tweeted: “I publicly, and in my personal capacity, disagree with the phasing out of Afrikaans as one of the mediums of teaching at the University of Pretoria...

“You are shooting yourselves down. You will regret it in 30 years’ time.”

His view was met with criticism and by emotional responses on Twitter, notably from EFF leader Julius Malema.

He strongly disagreed with

Mboweni’s stance.

Political analyst Levy Ndou joined in the fray and slammed Mboweni for his views.

He said those who held high office should conduct themselves in a responsible manner.

“It was not well thought (out by) the minister, and it is also very important for all of us to preserve our history, culture and languages. That should, however, not be done at the expense of other citizens, or done in order to bring back the wounds of the apartheid past,” said Ndou.

“If you have made an observation (of the responses on Twitter), there are a lot of people that were seen to have been angered by the minister.”

The minister is known for expressing views that are contrary to those of many in the ANC. Last year, Mboweni was also criticised for calling for embattled SAA to be shut down after it received yet another bailout from the government, then totalling R5 billion. He also became embroiled in a dispute with the SA National Editors’ Forum after lambasting editors in social media posts.

He is, however, not the only politician to have found themselves in hot water over social media posts.

Western Cape Premier Helen Zille found herself at the centre of a national uproar in 2017 after she tweeted: “For those claiming the legacy of colonialism was only negative, think of our independent judiciary, transport infrastructure, piped water, etc.”

She added: “Would we have had a transition into specialised health care and medication without colonial influence? Just be honest please.”

Last June the public protector found the tweets violated the code of ethics for her office. Ndou called on political parties to hold their members accountable for what they posted on social media.

“When you join a political party, there are certain rights you have to surrender to the political party. The political party is supposed to have a constitution, a code of conduct which regulates the conduct of its members.

“He (Mboweni) made those statements in his personal capacity, but the unfortunate part is that citizens cannot (determine) whether this is personal or official. There should be a way of regulating how senior government officials express themselves in the public, (so they do) not tarnish the image of their party.”

Civil rights movement Afri Forum slammed the university’s decision to change its language policy, saying that despite court rulings over the past year, its wing Afri Forum Youth retained its viewpoint that educational institutions that had students’ best interests at heart would make an effort to offer mother-tongue education.

Ohann Fourie, Afri Forum Youth’s national co-ordinator for campuses, said: “Our viewpoint is not to have only Afrikaans classes at universities; we believe there is a national responsibility placed on universities to develop other African languages into academic languages.”