Cabinet Minister Thembi Simelane has threatened to sue two journalists on “privacy and dignity” grounds after a probe into her lavish lifestyle confirmed her expenses by far eclipsed her income.
Between 2015 and 2020, Simelane spent millions of rands in cash on, among other luxuries, luxury handbags and shoes, a Mercedes-Benz Viano, a family holiday in Disney World, the acquisition of a coffee shop in Sandton and a gated Pretoria property on which she built a multistorey mansion when she was mayor of Polokwane, a Daily Maverick and News24 investigation found.
All on a post-tax salary of around R40,000 per month during this period.
In a lawyer’s letter dated 13 January 2025, Simelane demanded that the journalists “desist” in referring to “personal and private information”, and remove three offending articles, a short documentary and social media posts published in December 2024 and January 2025 which laid out the detail of her questionable wealth.
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