Cape Town – The ANC has assured South Africans that the Afrikaans language will remain protected despite concerns raised about the full implementation of the BELA Act.
On Friday, President Cyril Ramaphosa officially signed the BELA Act into law. Following this, DA leader John Steenhuisen and DA Federal Chair Helen Zille remarked that Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube would need to establish norms, standards, and regulations for the Act’s contested provisions regarding school admission and language policies.
According to The Citizen, ANC NEC member Febe Potgieter said that Gwarube was obligated to implement the BELA Act, regardless of opposing remarks from her party, the DA.
Potgieter said that Gwarube does not have the discretion to selectively implement laws.
“If [you’re] a minister, whether you’re from the ANC, the PAC or Rise Mzansi, you have to implement what is the law of the republic… You can’t decide what you implement and what you don’t implement,” the report quoted her as saying during an ANC media briefing on Saturday.
Potgieter also dismissed claims that the Act could threaten Afrikaans, saying that hat all official languages, including Afrikaans, were safeguarded by the constitution.
“Afrikaans is not going to disappear, it’s one of the official languages, it’s spoken by a broader community than just the Afrikaner community. For them to isolate themselves, we think that is a problem rather than to see themselves as part of the community of twelve South African languages,” SABC News quoted Potgieter as saying.
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Compiled by Betha Madhomu
