Apology to former deputy minister Obed Bapela | The Citizen
On 2 August 2026, The Citizen published an article titled “ANC veteran’s R1bn Prasa security deal under scrutiny”.
The article concerned questionable security contracts awarded by the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) to a “politically connected” security group led by ANC veteran Paul Langa.
The Citizen however inadvertently used a wrongly captioned picture from its archives alongside the article, believing it to be one of Mr Langa. Instead, it turned out to be a photograph not of Mr Langa, but of former deputy minister of public enterprises Obed Bapela.
The error was discovered and corrected shortly after publication.
The Citizen confirms that there is no relation whatsoever between Mr Bapela and the subject matter of the article.
The Citizen hereby extends its sincere apology to Mr Bapela for the unintentional error, and any embarrassment it may have caused.