Pule pummels paper

Dina Pule: Taking on Sunday Times (Image: GCIS)

The Department says in a statement just released that the Sunday Times is guilty of breaching the Press Code and must apologise to the Minister and that Pule intends to approach the Press Ombudsman "as the Sunday Times has consistently breached the Press Code by running what is clearly a politically motivated smear campaign against the Minister".

The department statement claims that for more than nine months the newspaper has been "running a series of fabricated stories with the clear intention to tarnish the reputation of Minister Pule.

"The articles have defamed the good name of Minister Pule and were clearly designed to violate her dignity. The Minister reserves her right to take further legal action in this regard.

The department claims that the what it terms the "random use by Sunday Times of unnamed 'sources', without any attempt to state their credibility and especially their independence, amounts to a serious breach of the Press Code" and adds that the newspaper has not presented any evidence to back up their claims since what the department calls "the smear campaign" began.

Allegations presented as facts?

"What the Sunday Times has done is to elevate allegations and opinion as fact, which was misleading to readers," claims the statement, which then says that "like the others before it, the latest Sunday Times article headlined 'Fire her now, Mr President' is littered with unverified, inaccurate, incorrect and unsupported allegations" and claims that the Sunday times claim that Pule has ceded control of her portfolio has ceded control of her portfolio to [a] person outside the department is a serious insult" and malicious.

The department claims that the newspaper's editors are "reckless" and have "not provided any evidence to support this serious allegation which has been presented as a fact".

According to the statement, Pule is still running her department but is not responsible for administrative processes in the Department, which is the responsibility of the Accounting Officer.

Read the full statement here.