The Department of Communications (DoC) has labelled an opinion piece in The Sunday Times by its editor a “personal attack” on South Africa’s communications minister Dina Pule, her spokesperson Wisani Ngobeni and the City Press newspaper.
Sunday Times editor Phylicia Oppelt penned the piece for yesterday’s paper in which she sought to explain to readers the process in which the paper handed evidence to parliament’s ethics committee through opposition party the Democratic Alliance (DA).
Oppelt said members of the committee, which is currently investigating Pule’s conduct, from the ANC, the DA and the Inkatha Freedom Party, had all requested the paper to hand over evidence and the paper had complied by handing them on through the DA.
Oppelt wrote: “We co-operated with the ethics committee, not a political party.”
She added: “There is a mob of the self-righteous, led by a former Sunday Times employee, a government minister and a rival newspaper, who are the self-anointed moral guardians of the ethics and conduct of this 107-year-old publication.”
The City Press newspaper was the first to report the accusations that the Sunday Times had been cooperating with the DA exclusively rather than the ethics committee, around two weeks ago.
The DoC were quick to respond to Oppelt’s article yesterday and issued a 1,000 word statement condemning her piece.
It said: “The article can only be described as appalling and offensive. Oppelt’s article is grounded in both disrespect and arrogance which has characterised the newspaper’s coverage of Communications Minister Dina Pule for the past 11 months.
“Oppelt is taking South African journalism down the toilet of history by abusing her position as editor of one of the most powerful publications in the country.”
The statement added: “Instead of facing up to her unethical conduct, Oppelt elected to use the Sunday Times platform to launch a personal attack on Minister Pule, departmental spokesperson Wisani Ngobeni, City Press editor Ferial Haffajee, and her deputy, Adriaan Basson.”
Pule remains under investigation by the ethics committee, the South African police and public protector for conduct relating to the ICT Indaba held in Cape Town and organised by the DoC last year, in which sponsorship money is alleged to have been misappropriated and found its way to the minister’s reported boyfriend Phosane Mngqibisa.
