Minister grasps for sympathy

Just days before Minister of Communications Dina Pule is to face a grilling in parliament over allegations of corruption, she launched a desperate campaign to clear her name.

Briefing journalists in Rosebank, Johannesburg yesterday, Pule attacked the Sunday Times and its journalists, saying their articles about her were part of a smear and blackmail campaign.

Sunday Times editor Phylicia Oppelt described Pule's claims as "unfortunate" and challenged the minister to back up her claims with evidence.

The Sunday Times has in the last year reported how Pule's purported boyfriend, Phosane Mngqibisa, allegedly received about R6-million in management fees for the 2012 ICT Indaba, which was organised by Pule's department.

The department allegedly forced the organisers of the conference to hire Mngqibisa.

The public protector is probing Pule's role in the Indaba scandal, following reports that R25-million was used to enrich close associates of the minister.

This week, the Sunday Times revealed a paper trail that showed how Pule appointed a recruitment firm reportedly linked to Mngqibisa to enable him to engineer the appointment of his "friends and relatives" to the boards of the Post Office, Usasa, Sentech and the SABC.

Yesterday, Pule retaliated: "After careful consideration, I have now decided to reveal the real reasons behind this persistent smear campaign against me. This campaign is not and was never a genuine journalistic endeavour. It was a highly sophisticated plot to blackmail me.

"It is all about business and political interests related to the multibillion-rand set-top-box tender and related issues," she said.

Pule said Sunday Times journalists Mzilikazi Wa Afrika, Rob Rose and Stephen Hofstatter were acting on behalf of "handlers" and that the newspaper had failed to provide "any shred of evidence" that she had broken the law.

Oppelt dismissed Pule's allegations.

"We find it unfortunate that, rather than dealing with the essence of the claims against her, she proceeds to attack the messenger of the stories," Oppelt said.

"We also find it disturbing that the minister would use her office to call an 'important' press conference . to launch a personal attack on both the Sunday Times and its journalists."

Oppelt said Pule continued to avoid clarifying the key issue, her relationship with Mngqibisa.

"We urge the minister to provide the Sunday Times and the public with proof to substantiate the allegations she made today [yesterday]. If she cannot, she should do the right thing and publicly apologise," Oppelt said.

The DA said Pule was trying to whip up sympathy ahead of her hearing before parliament's ethics and members' interests committee.

"Pule must desist from trying to create the impression that she is a victim of blackmailers," DA MP Marian Shinn said.

PULE SAYS

AT THE press briefing Communications Minister Dina Pule said of the Sunday Times report:

• "I received a call from [Mzilikazi] Wa Afrika's associates proposing to facilitate a meeting between me and Wa Afrika and promising to assist me to make the story disappear. These are the very same people who have submitted a bid for the set-top-boxes tender."

She said she attended the meeting at a Sandton hotel but rejected all proposals put to her;

• A woman claiming to be [Stephan] Hofstatter's associate offered to work as her "special adviser" and "to manage" him.

Pule claimed Hofstatter wanted to plant the woman in her office to uncover damaging information;

• Allegations that the millions donated to the ICT Indaba went missing came from [Rob] Rose's "close friend", who has worked for one of the sponsors. She said she would report the newspaper to the Press Ombudsman.

SUNDAY TIMES RESPONDS

EDITOR Phylicia Oppelt said that Pule's purported boyfriend, Phosane Mngqibisa, had initiated the Sandton meeting with Wa Afrika and that it was Mngqibisa who had invited the "handlers" the minister spoke about.

She said that if Pule had evidence that these businessmen were trying to influence the Sunday Times, she should name them and their interests in an open forum.

Wa Afrika did not offer to suppress stories in exchange for information. Such an offer would be unethical.

Oppelt said Wa Afrika learned after a few months that Pule was in a relationship with his distant relative - which the minister has denied. He had not obtained information from this relative.

• Hofstatter was accused of trying to plant an individual in Pule's office to get information. Oppelt said the person contacted Hofstatter and told him that Pule had asked her to take a job as a "reputation manager", and said that, should this happen, she would not provide him with information on her.
• Rose supposedly had a "close friend" at a telecommunications company who had friends with business interests.

Oppelt said Rose did not have close friends at these places, only contacts and sources whom he spoke to regularly in the normal course of his job.