Sports minister shown red card for 'playing away'

30 October 2011 - 03:13 By Sunday Times
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Married Minister of Sport Fikile Mbalula - who last night celebrated his 40th birthday with a lavish party in Pretoria - is embroiled in a nasty spat with a former lover.

According to our sister publication, Sunday World, Joyce Molamu claims she is pregnant with his child after a one-night stand when they met at a party in Saxonwold, Johannesburg, recently.

The tryst occurred just before Mbalula jetted off to New Zealand to attend the Rugby World Cup.

Molamu already has a five-month-old child and apparently told Mbalula on his arrival from New Zealand that she was pregnant .

Molamu declined to comment. "I have been advised by my lawyers not to comment on the matter," she told Sunday World.

Mbalula confirmed he had had a relationship with Molamu while briefly separated from his wife.

"She has told me that she will go public and say I have not used a condom when I slept with her and that I was cheating on my wife with her," he said.

"The truth is that I used a condom with her, but it burst during sex. Again, that I was cheating on my wife with her is not true, because my wife and I had separated when I met her."

Mbalula said that after the condom allegedly burst, Molamu promised to take a morning-after pill.

He said: "I was surprised when she told me that she was pregnant when I returned from New Zealand."

Mbalula said Molamu then asked him to give her R2000 for an abortion.

"I then agreed to give [her] R10000 for that and other medical attention she might need, as she insisted that she didn't want to keep the child."

Mbalula said he suspected that Molamu was extorting money from him when she later demanded R40000.

"She said I should give her R40000 or she will go public about her so-called pregnancy and that she will also lie that I didn't use protection when I was having sex with her.

"I'm a responsible man. How can I sleep with a woman without protection? She is just bitter that I reconciled with my wife."

He said Molamu previously dated President Jacob Zuma's communications adviser, Zizi Kodwa, and had also tried to extort money from him.

"I'm told that she broke windows of his house in Midrand when he refused to give her money. She is targeting politicians and then blackmails them into giving her money. I sympathise with her because she thinks politicians are rich, and we are not."

Kodwa confirmed he had also dated Molamu, but refused to be drawn into why they broke up.

"What she is doing to Fikile is nothing. She did worse things to me. I don't even want to talk about them," he told the paper.

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