Africa-Press – South-Africa. The chairpersons of two parliamentary portfolio committees have come out in defence of Higher Education Minister Nobuhle Nkabane, who has landed herself in hot water over her conduct related to the appointment of sector education and training authority boards, known as SETAs.
While they say she still has a lot to answer for, it’s too early to call for her to be sanctioned.
Chairperson of the higher education committee, Tebogo Letsie, said at a media briefing in Parliament on Monday, it can’t be said with certainty that Nkabane misled Parliament about the independent panel which advised her to appoint a number of politically-connected people to chair SETA boards.But Letsie said that more information is still awaited from the SETA advisory panel and from Nkabane herself before she can be accused of misconduct.
“It’s not conclusive whether she has lied or not, at this point. This is not something we take lightly, but we are not going to jump any stages. We are going to follow all processes.”
On the other hand, chairperson of the select committee on education, Makhi Feni, said it was not for Parliament to make the first move against her.
“The president has all the necessary authority in the Constitution, so we don’t understand why there are these processes of making noise about questions of ethics, and so on.”
Letsie said that Nkabane will be expected to appear before the committee again on this matter in the coming weeks, once it has cleared its agenda of pressing budget processes.
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