The Sunday Times says this morning, on its front page, that "all of communication minister Dina Pule's highly-publicised complaints against the Sunday Time have been dismissed in their entirety".
According to the report, press ombudsman Johan Retief found that the paper had not violated the press code and that there was no evidence of unethical conduct by either the paper or its editor, Phylicia Oppelt.
The Sunday Times has been publishing details about how Phosane Mngqibisa, her alleged romantic partner, and his friends allegedly benefited from his links with Pule. The department has hit back at the newspaper, accusing it of distorting information and using suspect documentation in a bid to convict Pule in the public eye.
The complaints relate to articles the paper ran saying that Pule's lawyer had admitted wronging it, and that it had proof that Pule and Mngqibisa were partners as it reported that he was listed as her spouse in official departmental documents. Another complaint related to the paper handing over information to a political party while Pule was being probed by Parliament's ethics committee.
Not unethical
Pule complained about a story 5 May article that said that she had sent her lawyer, Ronny Bokwa to broker an armistice between the paper, which has published a series of allegations against the minister, and herself.
Sunday Times says that Pule had complained that the story falsely stated that Bokwa had been her lawyer and that she had apologised to the Sunday Times after accusing it of a smear campaign. It says Retief found that the Sunday Times arguments on the matter were convincing.
In a separate article, the paper had reported that it had "new" documents that showed that Pule nominated Mngqibisa as her spouse when she was deputy minister in 2009. The pair traveled on an official visit to Mexico together in September 2009, it says.
The Sunday Times alleged 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".
Retief also dismissed a complaint that the newspaper had acted unethically when it shared information with the Democratic Alliance (DA), which led to a war of words between it and the department's spokesman, Winsani Ngobeni.
The department had argued that handing over information to the opposition was "shameful behaviour" after City Press reported that the Sunday Times handed over information to DA member of Parliament Dianne Kohler Barnard, who then submitted it to Parliament's ethics and members' interests committee, which had been conducting an inquiry into Pule.
"I could find no trace of evidence that the newspaper has lost its independence in favour of the DA or that it could justifiably be accused of unethical behaviour in this matter," the paper quotes Retief as saying. The complaint was dismissed in its entirety, it reports.
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