{"id":162101,"date":"2017-03-06T11:03:24","date_gmt":"2017-03-06T09:03:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=162101"},"modified":"2017-03-09T10:48:13","modified_gmt":"2017-03-09T08:48:13","slug":"disrespectful-social-development-department-spokesperson-refuses-to-answer-questions-in-english","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/media\/162101\/disrespectful-social-development-department-spokesperson-refuses-to-answer-questions-in-english\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Disrespectful&#8217; social development department spokesperson refuses to answer questions in English"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Social development department spokesperson Lumka Oliphant\u00a0refused to speak in English during an interview with Talk Radio 702, continuing the department&#8217;s trend of shutting down mainstream media&#8217;s questions around the social grants crisis.<\/p>\n<p>In a brief interview with host Xolani Gwala, Oliphant ignored requests from Gwala that she &#8220;respect the medium&#8221; and answer questions in English for the benefit of all his listeners.<\/p>\n<p>After refusing the request a second time, Gwala ended the interview, saying that it was clear that Oliphant did not want to be on the programme.<\/p>\n<p>Radio 702 is an English- medium station,\u00a0and Oliphant\u00a0has also previously been interviewed on 702 and spoke in English.<\/p>\n<p>On Sunday (5 March) in a Q&amp;A session after a statement by the department, social development minister Bathabile Dlamini refused to answer questions posed by eNCA, pressing for information about the department&#8217;s plans to pay 17 million grants on April 1st.<\/p>\n<p>The minister accused the media of creating chaos and pushing their own agenda around the matter, and refused to comment on anything that could \u201ccause issues\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.omnycontent.com\/w\/player\/?orgId=5dcefa8e-00a9-4595-8ce1-a4ab0080f142&amp;programId=2f79c727-4b1f-4cbb-8014-a6f300c285b8&amp;clipId=99df8674-ce1c-47e8-b41f-a72e005d09c1\" width=\"100%\" height=\"150px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Before speaking to Oliphant, Gwala spoke to\u00a0Net1 CEO Serge Belamant about a reported agreement reached between Cash Payment Services and Sassa. Belamant confirmed that an agreement had been reached on a new contract, but that nothing had been signed off.<\/p>\n<p>According to the CEO, it was his understanding that Sassa and the department of social development had the power to sign an &#8217;emergency contract&#8217;, allowing for tender processes to be sidestepped &#8211; however, such an agreement needed to be approved by National Treasury.<\/p>\n<p>Before shutting down discussion on 702, Oliphant spoke on other stations where she was quoted saying that the department of social development cannot comment on Treasury&#8217;s behalf regarding the Sassa grants crisis.<\/p>\n<p>Oliphant sparked controversy earlier in the year when she took to social media in an <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/150157\/dont-talk-sh-about-my-boss-social-development-ministers-spokesperson\/\">expletive-laden rant<\/a><\/strong>, where she defended Dlamini from what she called &#8216;attacks from the media&#8217;. She later apologised for the rant.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read:\u00a0<a title=\"Social development minister refuses to answer tough questions on grants crisis\" href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/161973\/social-development-minister-refuses-to-answer-tough-questions-on-grants-crisis\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Social development minister refuses to answer tough questions on grants crisis<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Social development department spokesperson Lumka Oliphant refused to speak in English during an interview with Talk Radio 702, continuing the department&#8217;s trend of shutting down mainstream media&#8217;s questions around the social grants crisis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":162105,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5554],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-162101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media","tag-active"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162101"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":163081,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162101\/revisions\/163081"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}