RED SOLES AND RED FACES
. . . how Pule’s deceit was exposed
DAYS after the inaugural ICT Indaba in Cape Town, a whistleblower approached the Sunday Times, angry that a man he called Dina Pule’s boyfriend had apparently got his hands on sponsors’ cash.
Given that Pule had apparently called up the companies over which she had oversight and, in the words of one executive, “basically extorted” sponsorship cash of R25.7-million from Vodacom, MTN and Telkom, it was a potentially serious conflict of interest. Her own department, it turned out, had chipped in another R10.5-million.
However, the “boyfriend” — Phosane Mngqibisa — was on none of the ICT-Indaba documents, so it seemed unlikely that he had drawing rights to the money. But when the Sunday Times contacted conference organiser Carol Bouwer, she confirmed that Mngqibisa was a “second signatory” to her company bank account and was entrusted with the responsibility to ensure “suppliers can be paid timeously”.
This blew the lid on a scandal that became more intriguing as each week went by.
Pule would not clarify the relationship, however, and Mngqibisa sent a statement saying: “I prefer to keep my private personal life private, since I am not a public figure.”
It later emerged that invoices were submitted to Bouwer’s account for the ICT Indaba for Christian Louboutin shoes, which sources said were given to Pule as a gift. Mngqibisa later claimed the invoice was for men’s shoes — yet he could not produce the invoice.
As Pule dodged calls, more evidence emerged supporting the claims. First, there were flight records that showed they had gone on no fewer than 19 overseas trips together.
Then a Werksmans attorneys report done for MTN emerged, which showed that Mngqibisa’s company, Khemano, was paid R6-million for its work on the indaba — but the ethics committee report reveals big question marks over what they did to earn this immense fee.
Pule then broke her silence, announcing there was no such relationship with Mngqibisa.
More sordid details emerged that not only had they shared a luxury trip to New York’s Ritz-Carlton hotel, but Pule had even registered Mngqibisa as her “spouse” in official Department of Communication records. Eventually, the evidence had become too much. — Rob Rose