Communications Minister Dina Pule.(SABC)
Tags:
Communications Minister Dina Pule says there's a campaign being waged to discredit her. This after reports that she had a conflict of interest around the ICT Indaba her department hosted in Durban in early June.
It was reported that a businessman involved in organising the event was romantically linked to the Minister and that millions of rands in sponsorship fees were unaccounted for.
"There is somebody or some people who are working very hard to try and distract me and I can tell the public that I'm not going to be distracted. I know they want me to swim in the mud. I was never taught to go and swim in the mud, I was taught to go and take a shower," says Pule.
Yesterday, Pule's department said it's received a report from Auditor General Terrance Nombembe. The report, which is yet to be released, clears her of wrongdoing relating to this year's ICT summit. It was reported that a businessman, who was romantically linked to Pule, withdrew millions of sponsorship money.
Meanwhile, government says migration to digital television will ensure that almost all South Africans have access to the public broadcaster's services. Pule says her department is going ahead with programmes that will ensure millions of South Africans in rural areas get access to the SABC's radio and TV services.
She says plans to launch the service are at an advanced stage. Pule was in Mpumalanga's Ka Tshabalala village near Hazyview. It is estimated that more than three million people in South Africa, especially in rural areas still do not have access to radio and television signals. Pule says this problem will soon be a thing of the past.
"I'm so excited about the program because where we stand now as a department is that we are ready to launch the first phase of the digital broadcasting or the migration from analogue to digital broadcasting and we believe that the first phase can be launched now. In the next month, in September, we have then began to think where can we go and launch it and we thought the best place will be the Northern Cape."
The minister also distributed food parcels and blankets to villagers to celebrate Nelson Mandela month.
