Media personality Somizi Mhlongo was arrested and granted bail at the weekend after transport minister Fikile Mbalula laid a charge against him.
On Friday, Mbalula opened a case against Mhlongo at the Sandton police station on a charge of breaching disaster-management regulations related to “information dissemination and misinformation”.
Hours before President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that SA’s Covid-19 lockdown would be extended until the end of April, Mhlongo had asserted in an Instagram video that Mbalula had given him a heads-up about the extension.
Mhlongo subsequently apologised to Mbalula for his “joke”, saying: “I’m just like you, I did not know about it. I was just guessing.”
