Phumla Williams slams claims the presidency allows false 'family meeting' rumours to spread online

“Actually, the presidency issues an official statement when he is scheduled to address the nation,” she tweeted on Monday.

Williams said she was inundated with calls from people who wanted to know whether Ramaphosa would be addressing the nation on Monday after a fake notice which purported to be from the presidency went viral on Twitter.

“People I am getting a lot [of] calls from another fake information to the public. There is no planned address by the president. All the speculations on that text are fake and urge everyone to ignore it,” she tweeted.

Speaking to TimesLIVE on Monday, presidency spokesperson Nonceba Mdluli dismissed the notice as “fake news.” Along with the letter there was widespread speculation that the president would announce a move to a hard lockdown as was done early last year to halt the spread of Covid-19.

Covid-19 cases continue to spike despite these measures. According to the latest report from the health ministry, SA has 1,113,349 cumulative Covid-19 cases and 30,011 Covid-19 related deaths.