South African President Cyril Ramaphosa put the communications minister on “special leave” for two months on Wednesday and docked a month of her pay for breaking the rules of a countrywide lockdown by having lunch with a former official.
Ramaphosa acted after a picture of Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams at the lunch emerged on social media, angering South Africans confined to their homes during the 21-day lockdown that started on March 27 to rein in the coronavirus outbreak.
According to the rules, people are only allowed to leave their homes for essential tasks like buying food or seeking medical help. Police arrested more than 17,000 people during the first few days of the lockdown, many for violating the rules.
“The president strongly believes that no one, including the minister, is above the law,” Ramaphosa’s spokeswoman Khusela Diko said. “He says none of us should undermine our national effort to save lives in this very serious situation.”
In a video posted on Twitter, Ndabeni-Abrahams apologised.
“I would like to convey an apology to … society at large for breaching lockdown rules put in place to curb the spread of COVID-19,” she said. “I regret the incident and am deeply sorry.”
The country’s largest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, had called on Ramaphosa to fire Ndabeni-Abrahams and lay a criminal complaint against her over the “lockdown lunch”.
Ndabeni-Abrahams has been leading government efforts to lower data prices and increase policy certainty in the telecoms sector, including via the licensing of high-demand spectrum.
She is not the first government minister to break lockdown rules. New Zealand Health Minister David Clark drove his family to the beach during the lockdown there, and Scotland’s chief medical officer stood down after breaching the lockdown by visiting her second home.
