Lumka Oliphant's performance on local talk radio station 702 has truly pushed her beyond the pale.
The job of a media spokesperson is very similar to that of a journalist. Indeed, many spokespeople are former journalists.
One similarity is the unwritten law that neither should become the story.
A spokesperson must ensure that their principal’s message is conveyed. A journalist must get the whole message, unwinding the spin if necessary. When either of them ends up being the news, they’ve failed – because that’s not their job.
Lumka Oliphant, a former colleague, now notorious for being Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini’s spokesperson, has failed.
At first she was censured for her overly chauvinistic defence of her principal against allegations of drunkenness on duty, resorting to phraseology that was not just unbecoming of her post, but served to further tarnish her minister – and herself – and not refute the original accusations.
Now, as 17 million South Africans ponder the possibility of a month without the social grants they so desperately rely on to survive, because of a crisis that appears more and more to be solely of the minister’s making, inspired apparently by a desire to retain a supplier at all costs despite a Constitutional Court order to the contrary, Oliphant has done it again.
On Sunday she could have been excused, at a push perhaps, of over-zealously guarding her principal from hostile questions at a press conference – even though the had minister called it. But her performance on local talk radio station 702 on Monday truly pushed her beyond the pale.
Irrespective of whether she had asked to be on air, or whether presenter Xolani Gwala had invited her to ensure that her minister’s side was heard, Oliphant’s decision to conduct herself in isiZulu was nonsensical.
For a start, it’s not her home language. Second, it’s not the language of the majority of the show’s listeners, so it’s very difficult to understand what, if anything, she was trying to achieve.
As Gwala told her repeatedly: “You have the right to speak in whatever language you want, but you must respect the medium.”
When Oliphant wouldn’t, he cut her off – as he was perfectly entitled to do. Gwala could just as well have told her to respect the listeners, who as citizens are her principal’s bosses, and Oliphant’s too.
Instead, Oliphant’s conduct smacked of the same contemptuous arrogance as Dlamini’s – and explains better than any words ever could just how we find ourselves in the mess we do.