Communications minister Dina Pule has placed her director-general, Rosey Sekese, on “special leave”, potentially igniting a new round of turmoil in the troubled government department.

Pule’s spokesman, Siya Qoza, confirmed the move on Monday morning after the Sunday Times carried a short report at the weekend about the developments.

One of the department’s deputy directors-general, Gift Buthelezi, has been appointed as acting director-general until 15 February.

The move to place Sekese on enforced leave follows a consensus by parliament’s portfolio committee on communications that she had “misled” the committee regarding the signing of her performance agreement for 2012/2013.

In October 2012, Sekese told the committee that she had a performance agreement. During deliberations, committee members asked for evidence of the signed performance agreement. Two documents were provided and were circulated among committee members. After studying the two contracts, committee chairman Eric Kholwane said they were found to be “two unidentical documents which did not have signatures of both parties. Therefore, they do not constitute a performance agreement.”

According to legal counsel, there was no contract between the director-general and the minister. “The committee acted on the recommendation provided by legal counsel to refer the matter back to the minister to deal with and act upon and accordingly the minister will report to the committee on her course of action,” Kholwane said at the time.

TechCentral was not immediately able to reach Sekese for comment. — NewsCentral Media, with additional reporting by Sapa