BREAKING. eNCA apologises for terrible mistake of including old file footage from 2009 of Grace Machel saying Mandela has 'lost his sparkle'.

Dealing a massive dent to the crediblity of the eNCA (DStv 403) the channel is now doing major damage control after including years' old archive footage into a Nelson Mandela hospitalisation story, with eNCA news anchor Jeremy Maggs apologising about video file footage of Graca Machel, Nelson Mandela's wife, in which she's saying the frail elderly South African statesman is "losing his sparkle".

The eNCA ran a story on Monday night showing Graca Machel saying that the former South African president with waning health is losing "his sparkle". The problem? That footage is of Graca Machel in 2009 and has zero bearing on Nelson Mandela's current hospitalisation in Pretoria due to lung and respiration infection.

The now highly embarrassing and contextually wrong "sparkle" story on the eNCA was picked up by international newswires and went global running in newspapers and on websites around the world from America to India and the United Kingdom to South America.

"In an eNCA report broadcast last night a clip was included of an interview with Nelson Mandela's wife, Graca Machel. In it Graca Machel spoke of Nelson Mandela's sparkle fading."

"Now eNCA would like to clarify this was from an interview in 2009, and not a current interview. Graca Machel was not responding in any way to Nelson Mandela's current hospital stay," said Jeremy Maggs.

"The eNCA regrets the confusion which may have been caused," said Jeremy Maggs.