The Herald (South Africa)

Brown’s PA asked to resign after leaks

- Graeme Hosken

PUBLIC Enterprise­s Minister Lynne Brown has asked her personal assistant Kim Davids to resign following allegation­s related to the Gupta e-mail leaks.

Last week‚ in an exclusive article‚ The Times revealed how the Guptas had paid for Davids‚ or a woman allegedly purporting to be her‚ to stay at the luxury Oberoi Hotel in Dubai in December 2015.

She stayed at the hotel at the time a host of other government ministers‚ including Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane‚ were staying at the hotel.

The payments were discovered in a trove of leaked family business e-mails.

Davids has continuous­ly denied that the family paid for her stay.

Last week, Davids said she and her then fiance had been en route to Portugal when she fell ill in the United Arab Emirates. She said she had discovered that she was pregnant and turned around with her fiance and returned to South Africa.

Brown said yesterday that she had asked Davids to “step down” following allegation­s related to the e-mail leaks.

“This past week I have been confronted by allegation­s against Davids. In the interest of fairness I asked Davids to respond to these allegation­s. “I was satisfied with her responses but I felt that the continuous allegation­s against Davids could compromise the legitimacy of my office.”

 ??  ?? LYNNE BROWN
LYNNE BROWN

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