Secretary-general of the African National Congress (ANC) Fikile Mbalula has welcomed the signing of the contentious Basic Education Laws Amendment (BELA) Bill into law on Friday, despite opposition to the enactment of the legislation.
Ramaphosa signed the controversial BELA Bill into law at the Union Buildings on Friday, a move which has upset other parties in the Government of National Unity (GNU), particularly the Democratic Alliance (DA) which has threatened to go to court.
In signing the the BELA Bill, Ramaphosa announced that he has resolved to delay the implementation of certain clauses of the Bill which deal with schools admission and language for three months while consultations happen.
“In the last few days, the parties to the Government of National Unity have expressed their wish to further engage each other on sections of the bill that deal with issues of admission and language. In the spirit of cooperation and meaningful engagement, I have decided to delay the implementation date for clauses 4 and 5 of the Bill by three months,” he said.
“This will give the parties time to deliberate on these issues and make proposals on how the different views may be accommodated. Should the parties not be able to agree on an approach, then we will proceed with the implementation of these parts of the Bill.”
Reacting to the developments, Mbalula said this was not a desperate attempt to save the Government of National Unity.
“It’s not so much about relationships more than being decent and maintaining the principle of cooperation among parties in terms of what needs to happen to people who serve in the same government … allow them space to basically ventilate because they too have got constituencies. They were elected on a ticket,” Mbalula spoke to broadcaster Newzroom Afrika.
“In this particular instance, we are the largest party that is why we caution everybody, to say don’t threaten because we too are not married to the GNU. We have got other options. So threats don’t work. The decent way to do things is to talk and if we can’t find each other, we have got to move ahead.
“If you decide to move away and drop from the GNU, it’s not a train smash. Government will not collapse, stability is guaranteed in this GNU going forward and we are determined to do that, so we are actually extending a hand of goodwill to everybody to ensure that the spirit of cooperation prevails,” he said.
The former minister of police said the ANC could have “arrogantly” gone ahead and implemented the Bill in its entirety without taking into consideration the views of other parties.
He added that there is no challenge with the BELA Bill but it is merely a question of linguistics in terms of the rights of school governing bodies to determine what happens in schools.
On Thursday, the publication reported that on the eve of the scheduled signing, EFF national spokesperson, Leigh-Ann Mathys said South Africa needs the BELA Bill.
“The BELA Bill introduces a suite of amendments to address systematic inequalities of basic education in South Africa. The DA is vehemently opposed to the Bill because of its inherent hatred of the African child,” said Mathys.
“We particularly support the fact that heads of departments will now be given the final authority to determine the admission and language policies at schools. The school governing bodies are currently solely responsible for this, and this has enabled them to use this power to exclude African learners and entrench racism at these schools.
“This power has been used as a tool in the hands of white supremacists to isolate African languages, and exclude African children from attending public schools that were formerly exclusively white,” she said.
Additionally, the GOOD party, led by Minister Patricia de Lille, has also thrown its weight behind the BELA Bill.
-IOL
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