Minister in smuggling scandal

A senior cabinet minister smuggled a foreign national with a false passport into South Africa on a state jet.

Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula has conceded that she flew from Waterkloof Air Force Base to the Democratic Republic of Congo to collect a 28-year-old Burundian woman who had been arrested for falsifying travel documents.

The documents were allegedly organised by Mapisa-Nqakula's sister who worked in the Burundi embassy at the time.

The defiant minister insists she sees nothing wrong with what she did and that she would do it again.

"My family isn’t ready to part with her and I will sacrifice everything for her," said the minister when confronted by the Sunday Times.

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