{"id":36320,"date":"2013-04-22T10:58:35","date_gmt":"2013-04-22T08:58:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=36320"},"modified":"2013-04-22T11:28:14","modified_gmt":"2013-04-22T09:28:14","slug":"dina-pule-im-being-blackmailed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/36320\/dina-pule-im-being-blackmailed\/","title":{"rendered":"Dina Pule: I&#8217;m being blackmailed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Minister of Communications, <a title=\"Dina Pule\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/2128-Dina-Pule\">Dina Pule<\/a>, said at a last-minute press briefing on Monday (22 April 2013), that the damaging reports published in the <a title=\"Sunday Times\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/6087-Sunday-Times\">Sunday Times<\/a> over the last 10 months are part of a \u201csophisticated plot\u201d to blackmail her.<\/p>\n<p>The reason for the blackmail is the multi-billion Rand tender \u201cand related issues\u201d for the set-top boxes needed for South Africa\u2019s migration from analogue to digital television.<\/p>\n<p>According to Pule, the intention was to force her to make decisions that favour the interests of certain powerful people and organisations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have witnessed an extraordinary call by a newspaper that is supposed to be objective to get the president to fire me,\u201d Pule said.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Allegations of mismanagement, cronyism and corruption<\/h3>\n<p>Over the last years numerous media reports fingered Pule and her alleged boyfriend <a title=\"Phosane Mngqibisa\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/4594-Phosane-Mngqibisa\">Phosane Mngqibisa<\/a> in cronyism, self-enrichment and mismanagement. These reports include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The <a title=\"ICT Indaba\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/4596-ICT-Indaba\">ICT Indaba<\/a> scandal involving the Minister\u2019s boyfriend;<\/li>\n<li>Awarding <a title=\"Sentech\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/2592-Sentech\">Sentech<\/a> \u2013 and indirectly Nagravision \u2013 the contract to install the control system in the locally assembled set-top boxes to further enrich her boyfriend, at the expense of an existing agreement with e-TV and SABC. The courts found Minister Pule\u2019s action unlawful;<\/li>\n<li>The killing of the <a title=\"Telkom\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/1637-Telkom\">Telkom<\/a>&#8211;<a title=\"KT Corporation\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/1638-KT-Korea-Telecom-Corporation\">KT Corporation<\/a> deal that promised to set Telkom on a path to technological excellence and financial growth;<\/li>\n<li>The disruption of Telkom\u2019s AGM and, through her last minute changes to the board elections, temporarily crippled its board\u2019s operations;<\/li>\n<li>Undue interference in the SABC board\u2019s appointment processes of SABC executives;<\/li>\n<li>The appointment of recruitment firm appointing Mindworx without a bidding process;<\/li>\n<li>The appointment of cronies of her boyfriend, Phosane Mngqibisa, to the boards of key parastatals.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These reports ultimately led to investigations into Pule.<\/p>\n<p>Parliament is set to investigate the ethical conduct of Pule in a hearing this week. Media reports suggest that Parliament\u2019s ethics committee had to work through 2,000 pages of evidence against Pule.<\/p>\n<p>The <a title=\"DA\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/1696-DA-Democratic-Alliance\">DA<\/a> also wants the police to investigate Pule after it laid criminal charges against the Minister of Communications at the Cape Town Central police station on 10 April 2013.<\/p>\n<p>Pule denied all the allegations, and also rejected claims that she is romantically linked to Phosane Mngqibisa.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">\u201cSunday Times has crossed the line\u201d<\/h3>\n<p>She went on to confirm that she will appear as directed before the ethics committee of Parliament on 2 and 3 May 2013.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have not sought to derail these processes in any way,\u201d Pule said, adding that she remains\u00a0confident that she will be vindicated by the outcomes of these formal processes.<\/p>\n<p>Pule appealed to the \u201chandlers\u00a0of the Sunday Times\u201d to let these processes run their course and not continue publishing their damaging reports.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey have not provided any shred of evidence that I have broken the law,\u201d Pule said. \u201cThey have crossed the line.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">More on Dina Pule<\/h3>\n<p><a title=\"Dina Pule to be hit with criminal charges\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/35210\/dina-pule-to-be-hit-with-criminal-charges\/\"><strong>Dina Pule to be hit with criminal charges<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Pule to be investigated by Parliament\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/34496\/pule-to-be-investigated-by-parliament\/\"><strong>Pule to be investigated by Parliament<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"DoC calls for Sunday Times apology\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/34226\/doc-calls-for-sunday-times-apology\/\"><strong>DoC calls for Sunday Times apology<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Pule victim of political smear campaign: spokesperson\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/34203\/pule-victim-of-political-smear-campaign-spokesperson\/\"><strong>Pule victim of political smear campaign: spokesperson<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"New revelations in Dina Pule saga\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/34196\/new-revelations-in-dina-pule-saga\/\"><strong>New revelations in Dina Pule saga<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Incompetence and corruption: the twin evils of Dina Pule\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/34270\/incompetence-and-corruption-the-twin-evils-of-dina-pule\/\"><strong>Incompetence and corruption: the twin evils of Dina Pule<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Minister of Communications, Dina Pule, says that the damaging reports published in the Sunday Times over the last 10 months are part of a \u201csophisticated plot\u201d to blackmail her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":14538,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[1087,1083,26,3786,667,65],"class_list":["post-36320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-department-of-communications","tag-dina-pule","tag-headline","tag-phosane-mngqibisa","tag-sabc","tag-telkom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36320","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=36320"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36324,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36320\/revisions\/36324"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}