Pule yesterday described the allegations as a "smear campaign" and said she would not resign.
She has been accused of giving tenders to a man alleged to be her boyfriend‚ Phosane Mngqibisa‚ as well as meddling in tender processes to benefit Mngqibisa.
She has also been accused of interfering in strategic appointments of officials and board members of state entities in order to appoint friends of Mngqibisa.
The allegations are contained in a series of articles published by the Sunday Times in the past 10 months.
The Sunday Times reported on Sunday that Pule "blew R2.6m on a recruitment deal that led to the appointment of cronies" of Mngqibisa to the boards of key parastatals.
According to the story‚ new documents show Pule ensured that a recruitment firm‚ Mindworx‚ which has links to Mngqibisa and her office's project manager‚ Andiswa Booysen‚ was awarded the R2.6m deal without a bidding process.
The first allegations were made after the Department of Communications hosted the ICT Indaba last year.
During a press conference on Monday Pule made serious allegations against the Sunday Times journalists‚ instead of addressing the allegations against her.
She said she knew Mngqibisa as a "comrade".
Pule is being investigated by the public protector and Parliament's ethics committee.
"It was a highly sophisticated plot to blackmail me‚" she said. "It is all about business and political interests related to the multibillion-rand set-top box tender and related issues."
According to Pule‚ the intention was to "force me to make decisions in their favour. When they realised that their threat of revealing accusations against me did not work‚ they then escalated their campaign with the hope that I would resign or that the president would fire me."
Pule ripped into the Sunday Times journalists with allegations regarding their association with businesspeople.
"The Sunday Times has effectively become a vehicle to drive the campaign against me as part of the sophisticated scheme to get me to co-operate with these unscrupulous businesspeople‚" she said.
Pule claimed one of the journalists‚ Mzilikazi wa Afrika‚ had a "close association with businesspeople and politicians who have bid for the set-top box tender".
She said a woman close to another of the journalists‚ Stephan Hofstatter‚ "misrepresented her intentions to me‚ offering to work for me as my special adviser".
According to Pule‚ the woman told her that "because of her close relationship with Hofstatter she could make the story disappear within weeks. In return she asked that I appoint her as a special adviser to the minister."
Pule said the first story that came out about the ICT Indaba came from a "close friend" of writer Rob Rose. Rose is now the editor of Business Times‚ the business section of the Sunday Times.
"The close friend of Mr Rose is actually a high-ranking official in the one of the companies which sponsored the ICT Indaba. This high-ranking official has friends with business interests in the ICT sector."
The Sunday Times is expected to issue a statement later on Monday to respond to Pule's allegations.
Democratic Alliance spokeswoman on communications Marian Shinn said Pule "must desist from trying to create the impression that she is a victim of blackmailers who are concocting allegations of misconduct and corruption against her and her romantic partner‚ Phosane Mngqibisa".
Source: I-Net Bridge
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