David Mabuza refused to comment on allegations regarding Zweli Mkhize and a dodgy Covid-19 contract.
He said his comment is the same as President Cyril Ramaphosa s.
Mkhize earlier welcomed an SIU investigation into the allegations.
Deputy President David Mabuza didn t want to express himself with regard to allegations that people linked to Health Minister Zweli Mkhize benefitted from a R82 million Covid-19 communications tender.
Mabuza on Wednesday explained to the National Assembly that the government took measures to prevent corruption in its Covid-19 vaccination programme.
DA MP Geordin Hill-Lewis referred to the Daily Maverick s recent report that an obscure communications company, Digital Vibes, with Mkhize s former personal spokesperson and family friend, Tahera Mather, and his former private secretary, Naadhira Mitha, as paid consultants, secured an irregular communications contract from the Department of Health.
South African journalist Sam Sole on landmark court victory: “2008 surveillance was the tip of the iceberg”
By Angela Quintal/CPJ Africa Program Coordinator
South Africa journalist Sam Sole, of the amaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism, spoke to CPJ about the 2008 surveillance he was subjected to and a recent landmark Constitutional Court ruling. (amaBhungane) Listen to article
South Africa’s highest court, the Constitutional Court, handed down a landmark judgment on February 4 that not only protects journalists and their sources from surveillance abuse, but also upheld a lower court’s ruling that the insidious practice of the bulk interception of ordinary citizens’ data and communication is illegal.
ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule has defended former president Jacob Zuma’s defiant stance towards testifying at the commission of inquiry into state capture.
Speaking to reporters outside the family home of late SA Communist Party stalwart Moses Kotane, Magashule asked journalists what wrong Zuma had done because he did not see fault with the latter’s behaviour.
Magashule insisted that there would be no reason to suspend the former statesman.
Magashule said Zuma “has a right to do whatever he wants to do” and asked: “Why should we suspend a person who believes in what he believes in?”
Zuma’s disrespect for the rule of law cannot and should not be tolerated.
The indemnification of pharmaceutical companies against “serious adverse events” during the vaccination process is internationally regarded as a vital precursor to the widespread roll-out of vaccines and forms part of all the current existing contracts.
Normally, pharmaceutical companies can insure against the risk of some of its vaccines causing harm which typically happens in a minuscule proportion of cases. But the astronomical size of the Coronavirus vaccine roll-out means even this tiny risk could turn into a huge financial risk to the producers of vaccines.
Consequently, governments which have already signed contracts with vaccine producers normally include a clause indemnifying the producers and try hard to find workarounds to ensure that the world can effectively start combatting the virus outbreak.
Foto Verskaf
The SA National Editors’ Forum (Sanef) is outraged by the insults that TV personality Somizi “Somgaga” Mhlongo directed at Sunday World acting editor Kabelo Khumalo and Julia Madibogo of City Press on Instagram after the two publications ran separate stories about his at the weekend.
This is despite both journalists offering him his right of reply on the separate stories they were writing about him for their respective newspapers.
Madibogo of City Press approached the Idols SA judge for comment on rumours that he and his husband Mohale Motaung-Mhlongo were divorcing. Khumalo sought comment after allegations that the production on his cooking show Dinner at Somizi’s had been put on hold amid legal proceedings instituted by Hastings Moeng.