Public Service and Administration Minister Faith Muthambi on Monday dismissed weekend media reports that she had appointed relatives in her office.

“None of the support staff mentioned in the Sunday Times story are friends nor relatives of the Minister,” the minister’s office said in a statement.

The Sunday Times reported that Muthambi had appointed 27 people to her private office, in excess of what she is entitled to according to the ministerial handbook which caps the number of staff in the minister’s private office to 10.

The newspaper claimed she had appointed uncles and cousins as support staff, drivers and deputy directors in her office.

Muthambi called the reports misleading, saying that she was allowed to make appointments without advertising the positions.

“…Section 9 of the Public Service Act, 1994, read with Regulation 66 of the Public Service Regulations, 2016 the Minister may appoint persons in posts in the Ministry without following advertisement processes provided that such appointments are either linked to the term of the Minister or for a period not exceeding 3 years,” her office said.

“In addition, the Minister is permitted, in terms of Regulation 57(2) of the Public Service Regulations, to appoint persons additional to the establishment.  Appointments additional to the establishment are not required to be done through advertisement processes.”

The Sunday times said among the appointments was the daughter of the disgraced former South African Broadcasting Corporation COO Hlaudi Motsoeneng.

Last month, the newspaper reported that the minister had spent hundreds of thousands of rands in taxpayers’ money to fly friends and family to Cape Town to listen to her budget speech in May.