City of Cape Town mayoral committee member Jean-Pierre Smith says his "joke" about broadcaster Abongile Nzelenzele's surname was misunderstood and taken out of context.

A video of Smith “refusing” to pronounce Nzelenzele's surname because it has “too many vowels, too awkwardly placed” is making rounds on social media and has triggered wide-ranging public condemnation and accusations of racism. Smith made the joke as he took on the stage by Nzelenzele to address the city's film industry.

“To our MC Abongile, I'm not going to try that surname, dude. It has too many vowels, too awkwardly placed. [You] need a short compact one like me; 'Smith'...” 

Smith told SowetanLIVE there was no ill-intent behind the joke and that he was aware of the snippet of the video that is making rounds on social media and the “humorous” comments around it.

“I have already spoken to Abongile. He said to me there was a whole range of humorous remarks made by him and others at the start of it, that he took no offence and didn't see anything offensive in the comment,” said Smith. 

He added that Nzelenzele had previously made fun of his own surname. 

“There is context to it. I just spoke to him now and he took no offence. [People] are being shown a portion of the proceedings so it is easy to [take it] out of context but we are speaking about a person and that person himself did not see any offence in the remarks,” he said.