Mantashe not off the hook over bribery claims

Johannesburg – The South African National Editors’ Forum has vowed not to let Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe off the hook as it seeks to have Parliament’s Ethics Committee force him to apologise for bribery claims made against two Sunday World journalists.

Sanef’s executive director, Kate Skinner, on Monday said the forum was waiting for Mantashe to issue an apology.

Last year Mantashe made the startling claims against two journalists of the Sunday tabloid, claiming he had given them R35 000 each to quash a story exposing his extramarital affair with a Pretoria woman named Lerato Makgatho.

But in a dramatic twist Mantashe made a quick U-turn. He claimed that despite actually making the claim against the journalists he had not made any payments to them.

Sanef wrote to Parliament’s ethics committee in November to call a hearing on Mantashe’s conduct, but to date there has been…