Somzi Mhlonho, an eccentric entertainment icon in South Africa, has been on the receiving end of backlash after he was heard spilling classified information on a friend’s Instagram Live feed.
South Africa’s lockdown gets extended
On Thursday, two weeks into the nationwide lockdown, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a two-week extension on the COVID-19-influenced regulations.
This, the president said, was a necessary measure to flatten the curve while the prime opportunity presented itself. You see, South Africa’s daily infection rate is currently at around 4%, a massive drop from 40% pre-lockdown.
A few moans were heard but all in all, South Africans understood that this had to be done and basically, everyone is behind Ramaphosa.
Anyone with a basic common sense would have expected this eventuality. No other country in the world hs managed to curve COVID-19 in three weeks.
Moreover, the county’s daily infections may have been reduced significantly but the virus has continued to spread and the whole point of this scale of social distancing is to flatten the curve.
Somizi gets himself into trouble for ‘peddling fake news’
Somizi could have stated in Dineo Ranaka’s IG Live feed that the lockdown would be extended and, if that was it, we would not be here today.
However, he had to name drop and credit the Minister of Transport, Fikile Mbalula, as his source of the classified information. What gave it more credibility was the fact that he made the utterance hours before the president’s public service announcement which was broadcasted at 20:00.
Consequent to the backlash, Mbalula issued a statement, indicating that he will file a criminal case against Somizi for “fake news and misinformation peddling.”
We will follow up on this and provide updates. In an effort to do damage control, Somizi took to his Instagram to furnish an apology to Mbalula for placing him in a predicament.
Watch: Somgaga apologises to Mbaks
After what happened to Minister of Communications Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, the last thing Mbalula needs is to be made an example by the president.
We don’t know if the apology was accepted but this is what Somgaga had to say:
