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City Press has in recent weeks published a series of articles on how the minister of labour was forced to intervene and pull the plug on a R5 billion job-creation deal between the Thuja Capital Fund and the UIF.
The deal was supposedly meant to create thousands of long-term, sustainable jobs and market linkages, as well as broaden supply chains.
The most recent in the series of articles was published on Sunday and focused on how the department of employment and labour director-general, Thobile Lamati, allegedly instructed UIF commissioner Teboho Maruping to process a payment of R2 billion from this deal, weeks before the deal was even formally concluded.
Read: Department of employment and labour DG in R5billion scandal
There has since been a response to these articles on social media, which involves the spreading of a fabricated email between the journalist responsible for the article and an alleged source/handler.
The email purportedly proved that the journalist was being paid to write these stories to tarnish the reputation of those implicated in the deal.
City Press editor in chief Mondli Makhanya has responded to these claims, saying:
City Press' reporting based on a forensic report, not only anonymous sources
Besides the fact that the alleged email exchange got the email address of the City Press journalist wrong, there are also several other glaring errors in the allegations.
Chief among these is the failure to address the fact that nearly every claim in the articles was based on the findings of a forensic report. Nor do they dispute the findings of the said report.
City Press' interest in the story started three weeks ago when it was approached by Pumeza Ceza, who was representing Mthunzi Mdwaba of Thuja Capital.
She had sent a statement, indicating that she had information that would be exclusive to City Press.
On reading the statement, it emerged that it was in fact a response to an article published in another publication.
City Press, however, used part of that statement and comments from other subjects mentioned in the story, and published a story online on 27 September, with the headline: Standoff between Thulas Nxesi and Productivity SA chair puts the brakes on R5bn employment scheme.
Ceza had also shared documents, which they claimed revealed the facts surrounding the deal.
On further investigation, City Press managed to obtain a leaked copy of the forensic investigation report into the cancelled deal.
A second story based on the report was published on 1 October with the headline: Nxesi expected to crack the whip over R5bn UIF jobs deal.
The publication of this second article led to a barrage of WhatsApp messages from Ceza, in which she resorted to calling our journalist all sorts of names, as she was apparently unhappy with the direction of the investigation not matching their desired outcomes.
Last week, City Press received further documentation which highlighted why the deal had been scrapped and the apparent irregularities involved, leading to the publication of the most recent article.
As noted, all the published articles had been based on verified documentation.
All subjects, including, Mdwaba, Lamati and Maruping, were given an opportunity to reply and they decided not to comment.
After the publication of the most recent article, the journalist was also subjected to further abuse from Ceza, including messages in which she cast aspersions on his credibility as a journalist.
In response to what now appears to be a concerted campaign to tarnish the integrity of the said journalist, Makhanya said:
City Press stands by our reporting on the canned deal, and we also stand by our journalist. We condemn the distribution of this fake email meant to cast doubt on our reporting and invite anyone with real evidence of anything untoward to submit that evidence.
