Top educator faces hate-speech charge

Johannesburg - A top Limpopo education official is in hot water for allegedly making racist remarks and threatening pupils at a school.

In an eight-minute recording The Star has listened to, and attributed to Dr Ntavhanyeni Phaswana, a man can be heard telling Grade 12 pupils they were “messing with the wrong guy” and that he was capable of manipulating their exam marks.

The clip was recorded by one of the pupils at Eric Louw High School in Musina in July.

“You are messing up with a wrong guy. Your question papers may not be found at the centre, your whole data may be deleted now,” said the circuit manager for the Soutpansberg North district in the Vhembe area.

The DA has opened a case of hate speech against Phaswana in the Equality Court.

“He can be heard promoting racial discord and violence when he was addressing Grade 12s,” said DA MPL Desiree van der Walt.

Phaswana, who is also an ordained minister of the Lutheran Church, can be heard threatening and telling the pupils to “voetsek” if they did not want to study.

Phaswana implied that he was capable of manipulating the pupil’s exam marks. He asked them if they knew that their marking sheets pass through him.

He strongly threatens to deregister them, saying not even the senior manager for exams would have an idea of what had happened.

He can also be heard telling the pupils that he had carried bombs from Russia, before telling them he had seen dying people in the past.

He told them that he would have no mercy on them if they bent the rules.

“You come to my office and you will see my boy, (who) is nine years old. I teach him to shoot at that age… nine years old. I have got many guns, you don’t know what bombs are.”

“Whether you are a member of the Inkatha Freedom Party or your parents are politicians anywhere, I am not interested.”

Phaswana can also be heard gloating about the fact that one of the pupils in his audience was crying.

“I am really enjoying all the crying, I am enjoying it,” he said.

Then he boasts that he would frustrate the pupil’s attempts to fight him in court.

“So, I will get a male Afrikaner lawyer who hates blacks. If you are white, I will get you a black Afrikaner lawyer who hates whites. (This way) all the scores or benefits that were fought (for) long ago… would be (fought) in court. By the time we are done you won’t have money,” he said.

Phaswana, who is also a regular contributor on the SABC’s Phalaphala FM inter-faith programme, has two masters degrees in biblical studies and practical theology, as well as a doctorate in philosophy.

He refused to comment on Tuesday, but provincial education spokesman Phuti Seloba said: “If indeed it’s him on that tape, this man has a lot to answer for, he is actually in big trouble.”

In March, Phaswana reportedly expelled a Grade 11 pupil from his privately owned Dr SN Phaswana Independent School in Dzanani because she did not have a birth certificate.

The Star