The Sunday Times is reporting on its front page this morning that communications minister Dina Pule listed businessman Phosane Mngqibisa as her spouse in official departmental documents.
The paper says it has acquired "new" documents that show that Pule nominated Mngqibisa as her spouse when she was deputy minister in 2009. The pair were set to travel on an official visit to Mexico together in September 2009, it says.
The Sunday Times alleges that the pair "blew" R700 000 on the trip, between 2 and 4 September 2009. According to the paper, a spouse is defined by the ministerial handbook as a "person legally married in the member [or] a permanent companion/life partner".
According to the paper, the pair took 20 trips together since 2009, with the latest being last June when they were on the same flight on the day the ICT Indaba ended. The article is the latest in a series linking Mngqibisa to Pule and alleging that they are romantic partners and that both have benefited from the relationship.
The department has previously dismissed all the paper's allegations, saying they would not stick and the paper says Mngqibisa did not respond to requests for comment on this morning's article.
Meanwhile, departmental spokesman Wisani Ngobeni has slammed the paper for an "appalling and offensive" article by editor Phylica Oppelt, in the editorial section, in which she depends the paper having handed over documents to Parliament's ethics committee, which has been probing Pule's relationship with Mngqibisa.
Mngqibisa allegedly benefited from last year's ICT Indaba after Pule allegedly foisted him on the organisers. The Sunday Times previously alleged that millions or rands, sponsored by telecoms companies for the inaugural ICT Indaba, had been misused.
A previous independent probe cleared Pule and Mngqibisa of any wrongdoing related to the indaba, and could also not find any evidence that the two were romantically linked.
Pule has lodged an official complaint against the paper with the Press Ombudsman and there has been mud-slinging between the department and the paper.
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