Phosane mngqibisa biography of barack

The minister of communications needs to come clean about her leading man and her spending

DESPITE an increasingly desperate spin campaign, beleaguered Communications Minister Dina Pule heads into Mangaung under a cloud.

This week, the press ombudsman gave her a bloody nose when he ruled that the Sunday Times had been justified in reporting about her "romantic relationship" with businessman Phosane Mngqibisa.

In June, in "It's just not Ayoba!", the Sunday Times told how Pule had leant on telecoms companies over which she has oversight - MTN, Vodacom and Telkom - to "sponsor" the inaugural ICT Indaba to the tune of R25.7-million.

It later emerged that, unbeknown to these sponsors, Mngqibisa had signing rights to the account into which their sponsorship money was paid.

In fact, Mngqibisa has already withdrawn millions from that account, which was in the name of indaba organiser Carol Bouwer, supposedly to