EXCLUSIVE | How Manana wriggled himself out of alleged assault

Times Select journalist Penwell Dlamini on Sunday witnessed former deputy education minister Mduduzi Manana‚ who has been convicted of assault and is still a member of parliament‚ negotiate with his domestic worker under a tree outside the Douglasdale police station in Johannesburg after she opened a case of common assault against him.

On Sunday afternoon‚ I received a tip-off that charges were being laid against Manana at the Douglasdale police station. I went to Fourways and found the domestic worker Christine Wiro with her son Mpho and a family friend (who asked not to be named) at a restaurant near the police station. They had already opened a case of assault and crimen injuria against him.

Wiro‚ a Zimbabwean woman who has been his domestic worker for only three weeks‚ told me her version of what led to the charge laid. She said every time she made a mistake in her new job at the Cedar Creek Estate‚ Fourways‚ he would threaten her with deportation.

On Sunday morning he told her he was expecting a visitor and that she needed to cook breakfast for two people. When the doorbell rang she opened the gate‚ assuming it was Manana’s guest. She said he shouted at her‚ saying “he will tell me whether to open or not. I apologised but he then said people could come and rob the house and rape me‚” said Wiro.

“He then threatened to deport me. He said: ‘I’m a politician‚ I have connections. I will deport you.’ When he said this I simply smiled and he got angry.”

- For more on this story‚ please visit Times Select.