{"id":35554,"date":"2013-04-11T14:57:05","date_gmt":"2013-04-11T12:57:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=35554"},"modified":"2013-04-12T09:45:51","modified_gmt":"2013-04-12T07:45:51","slug":"shinn-vs-pule-battle-lines-drawn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/35554\/shinn-vs-pule-battle-lines-drawn\/","title":{"rendered":"Shinn vs Pule: battle lines drawn"},"content":{"rendered":"

Democratic Alliance (DA<\/a>) shadow minister of communications, Marian Shinn<\/a> and minister of communications, Dina Pule<\/a>, have engaged in a back-and-forth battle of words on the backdrop of DA-led criminal charges against the minister.<\/p>\n

Responding to the criminal charges, Pule said that she found the DA\u2019s action curious, but added that, as citizens, the DA does enjoy the right to approach law enforcement agencies when they suspect wrongdoing of any sort.<\/p>\n

Pule pointed out, however, that Shinn and the DA were the ones who approached the Public Protector and Parliament\u2019s Joint Committee on Ethics and Members\u2019 Interests to investigate her.<\/p>\n

Neither of these investigations are completed, Pule said, adding that Shinn clearly doesn\u2019t want to wait for the outcomes of due processes undertaken by the two institutions.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer actions seem to either suggest that she is more than happy to use government resources to score cheap political points or prove that, indeed, the devil has ship loads of work for idle minds,\u201d Pule said.<\/p>\n

Shinn responds<\/h3>\n

Shinn responded to Pule\u2019s statement, saying that the Minister must stop her frenzied spin and is not keeping track of the amount and varying allegations against her.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer response aims to confuse the public into blanketing the different allegations under the ICT Indaba<\/a> and the subsequent investigations already under way,\u201d Shinn said.<\/p>\n

According to Shinn, there are already two investigations in progress:<\/p>\n

Joint Committee on Ethics and Members\u2019 Interests Chairman, Professor Ben Turok, has summonsed Minister Dina Pule to appear at a hearing set for 2 and 3 May 2013. This is with regard to a contract awarded to Khemano Events in staging the R102 million ICT Indaba in Cape Town in 2012.<\/p>\n

Minister Dina Pule is being investigated by the Public Protector, also in connection with the ICT Indaba.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy request to the South Africa Police Service (SAPS) which I made yesterday (10 April 2013) is to investigate further allegations against her contained in the Sunday Times on 24 March 2013,\u201d Shinn said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese relate to appointments in the Department of Communications<\/a> and its entities,\u201d Shinn explained. \u201cWe requested this investigation in terms of the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act 12 of 2004.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shinn said that the core allegation made in the Sunday Times is that the Minister\u2019s boyfriend, Phosane Mngqibisa<\/a>, seems to be in a position to appoint people of his choice to key positions in the department and its entities and that these people are in a position to influence the awarding of tenders.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe expect the police to investigate whether these allegations are true and determine the reason for them,\u201d Shinn said.<\/p>\n

Pule has dismissed claims that Mngqibisa is her boyfriend and has said that the articles in the Sunday Times are a smear campaign against her that is being waged by the paper.<\/p>\n

More on the DoC and the DA<\/h3>\n

Dina Pule to be hit with criminal charges<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Pule to be investigated by Parliament<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

DoC calls for Sunday Times apology<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Pule victim of political smear campaign: spokesperson<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

New revelations in Dina Pule saga<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Incompetence and corruption: the twin evils of Dina Pule<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DA minister Marian Shinn and Dina Pule, have engaged in a battle of words on the backdrop of DA-led criminal charges against the communications minister.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":35555,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2061,1087,1083,1444,26,2093],"class_list":["post-35554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-democratic-alliance","tag-department-of-communications","tag-dina-pule","tag-doc","tag-headline","tag-marian-shinn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35554"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35558,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35554\/revisions\/35558"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}