Bathabile Dlamini ‘bans’ eNCA from women’s activism event

News channel eNCA is reporting that their cameras and journalists are not being allowed into a 16 Days of Activism event she is launching at a hall in Mthonjaneni, northern KwaZulu-Natal.

Apparently she is only in favour of the SABC being present because “they know the parameters”, according to her communications team.

She did not stick around to clarify her position to the eNCA team.

The 16 Days of Activism campaign is an annual event on the government calendar against gender-based violence, and has been going for 20 years.

The theme for this year is “#HearMe Too: A violence-free world for women”.

According to a report in the Sunday Times today, the real reason President Cyril Ramaphosa did not axe Dlamini this week was because he’s hesitant to give the ANC’s Jacob Zuma faction a chance to say that he’s purging all those who were close to the former president.

However, the minister of women in the presidency appears to be far from in the clear, since the Hawks are investigating her for perjury after the Constitutional Court recommended earlier this year that she be investigated for lying under oath and possibly prosecuted.

The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) is yet to decide whether to prosecute. However, the institution is also currently waiting for its next head following the removal of Shaun Abrahams.

Insiders believe Shamila Batohi, a former KwaZulu-Natal head of prosecutions who has worked at the International Criminal Court in The Hague since 2009, is the most likely candidate to take the reins.

Once Dlamini is criminally charged, it would give Ramaphosa reason enough to fire her, or for her to have no choice but to resign, as appears to have happened with former home affairs minister Malusi Gigaba.

(Compiled by Charles Cilliers)

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