Once again, the M&G has excelled at using sensational headlines to denigrate our ministers. Did Mungo Soggot and Nawaal Deane feel conflict when they wrote their conflict of interest story (“Diamonds, the tiara and the minister”, January 25)?
Do they know Minister of Minerals and Energy Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, what she has done for our country, the respect she commands, her commitment to justice, transparency and gender equality? I doubt it. Otherwise they might have thought twice before effectively accusing her of corruption. There are two interpretations that can be placed on the allegations against Mlambo-Ngcuka. The first is that she commissioned the headpiece, with a budget limit, to promote her policy of beneficiation in the local jewellery industry. This you dismiss out of hand, though without any real evidence, as spin-doctoring. The second is that she deliberately used her position to obtain an expensive piece of jewellery at a knocked-down price. Although you produce no hard evidence to support this, the sensational headline and the tone of the article suggests this is the interpretation you want readers to believe.
Given that such reports undermine confidence in the government, at home and abroad, one wonders why you do such things. Your repeated efforts to discredit black politicians and to belittle their efforts to reverse the devastating legacy of apartheid goes much further than this, and risks playing into the hands of those who for racist or other reasons have a vested interest in derailing transformation in post-apartheid South Africa. Nozipho January-Bardill, Bern, Switzerland