Blade Nzimande has finally gone to Cuba — a trip his ousted director general, Mary Metcalfe, tried to prevent him from taking at the state’s expense.
The Mail & Guardian has learned that the minister of higher education and general secretary of the South African Communist Party left with a delegation from the department, including his spokesperson in the South African Communist Party, Malesela Maleka.
Solly Mapaila, Nzimande’s head of office, said Nzimande went with a departmental delegation and Maleka with a trade-union delegation, which was visiting the country at the same time.
An SACP politburo member said Nzimande missed an October trip to Cuba planned by the SACP “and was always going to go at a later stage”.
The party had planned the original trip to strengthen ties with the Cuban Communist Party, but Nzimande’s flight was cancelled at the last minute because of Metcalfe’s intervention. Her view was that she could not justify the expenditure from the departmental budget as the trip was to conduct SACP business.
Moving on
Soon after the incident Metcalfe was shown the door and moved out of government. The department denied at the time that her departure was related to her disagreement with Nzimande.
Gwebs Qonde, the acting director general, confirmed that a delegation of senior officials from the department, including chief of staff Nqaba Nqandela, had gone with Nzimande on a week-long trip to Cuba.
As a result, Nzimande missed a meeting of Parliament’s higher education committee at which President Jacob Zuma’s announcement that the policy of free tertiary education would be extended was discussed.
“The trip is based on an agreement signed in 2002 between South Africa and Cuba on educational co-operation,” said Qonde. The delegation would explore the possibility of collaboration and forge ministry-to-ministry ties.
No official statement about the visit was released by the department and Qonde would not say whether the delegation had returned — he said the question was irrelevant.
Maleka sent an email to reporters on January 20 saying he is on leave until February 6 and cannot be contacted on his cellphone.