{"id":69201,"date":"2020-04-09T10:18:56","date_gmt":"2020-04-09T02:18:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=69201"},"modified":"2020-04-09T12:12:36","modified_gmt":"2020-04-09T04:12:36","slug":"covid-19-south-africas-minister-who-had-lunched-with-friends-sent-on-leave-for-flouting-lockdown-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=69201","title":{"rendered":"Covid-19: South Africa\u2019s minister who had lunch with friends sent on leave for flouting lockdown rules"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bssnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/sa.jpg\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.bssnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/sa.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>PRETORIA, April 9 (NNN-AGENCIES) &#8212; South African President Cyril<br>Ramaphosa placed on special leave a minister seen lunching at a<br>friend\u2019s house in violation of the coronavirus lockdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ramaphosa has ordered a three-week national lockdown to try to brake the<br>virus, which has infected 1,749 people, killing 13 of them, according to an<br>official tally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But a picture posted on Instagram on Sunday showed Communications and<br>Digital Technologies Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams having lunch with five other people at the home of a former deputy minister earlier that day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cPresident Ramaphosa has placed the Minister on special leave for two<br>months,\u201d the presidency said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ramaphosa has \u201caccepted the minister\u2019s apology for the violation but was<br>unmoved by mitigating factors she tendered,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe nation-wide lockdown calls for absolute compliance on the part of all<br>South Africans,\u201d Ramaphosa was quoted as saying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cNone of us \u2014 not least a member of the national executive \u2014 should<br>undermine our national effort to save lives in this very serious situation,\u201d<br>said Ramaphosa. \u201cNo-one is above the law.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Last month, just two days into the lockdown, Social Development Minister<br>Lindiwe Zulu was forced to issue an apology after she posted a video on her<br>Instagram account, joking about how she was struggling to stay home. &#8212; NNN-AGENCIES<br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PRETORIA, April 9 (NNN-AGENCIES) &#8212; South African President CyrilRamaphosa placed on special leave a minister seen lunching at afriend\u2019s house in violation of the coronavirus lockdown. Ramaphosa has ordered a three-week national lockdown to try to brake thevirus, which has infected 1,749 people, killing 13 of them, according to anofficial tally. But a picture posted [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":69205,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[213],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69201"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=69201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/69205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=69201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=69201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=69201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}