Sunday World has learnt that President Jacob Zuma intends to make changes to his cabinet and has had a meeting with Pule.

Though the changes will be minor, Zuma will be reshuffling his cabinet for the fourth time since he first took office in 2009. There is speculation that he might make changes in two other departments, swapping ministers around.

It will be easy for Zuma to fire Pule, as she is no longer powerful because ANC delegates dumped her in Mangaung during the party's national elective conference in December, where she was not elected to the national executive committee nor the national working committee.

Pule will be the second communications minister to be fired by Zuma and her successor will inherit an unstable ministry.

Earlier this year she suspended her director-general Rosey Sekese but did not reveal her reasons for doing so.

Parliament's ethics committee is investigating Pule over the allegations about last year's ICT Indaba in Cape Town at which Mngqibisa is alleged to have withdrawn large sums of money from the bank accounts of Carol Bouwer Productions, the organisers of the indaba with which his company, Khemano, was working.

It is alleged that he used some of the money to buy a pair of French designer shoes with some of the R25,7m sponsors pumped into the event.

The shoes were bought in Barcelona, Spain, by Mngqibisa, during one of his international trips with Pule.

Mngqibisa was allegedly imposed on Bouwer by a senior official from Pule's office who instructed her to work with the minister's friend.

Zuma's decision on Pule follows another embarrassing scandal two weeks ago that Mngqibisa was paid R6-million in management fees during the conference despite not being much involved in it.

News emerged last year that the department pressurised Telkom, MTN and Vodacom to sponsor the event.

According to a Sunday Times report last year, Mngqibisa withdrew millions from event sponsorships within days after the money had been paid.

The Sunday Times reported that Mngqibisa was "very evasive when questioned on how he arrived at the amount of R6-million rands as a management fee.