by Molifi Tshabalala
As predicted by Mark Gevisser in “Thabo Mbeki: the Dream Deferred”, a biography of former South African president Thabo Mbeki, Cyril Ramaphosa’s presidential campaign had been “aggressively promoted through a fawning media [sic]”.
According to shared WhatsApp screenshots, Tasneem Carrim, a chief director at the Government Communication Information System (GCIS) who is responsible for policy and media analysis and research, created a Whatsapp media group named Thuma Mina (‘Send Me’) on 31 October 2017, just over two months before the 54th ANC National Conference, where Ramaphosa defeated Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma for an ANC presidency.
Carrim has served in the Presidency under Nelson Mandela as communication researcher. During Mbeki’s first term, she served as deputy director for media liaison. Before joining GCIS in 2007, she had applied her trade at the South African Revenue Service (SARS).
In his first state of the nation address (Sona), Ramaphosa cited “Thuma Mina”, a popular jazz song by the late South African musician Hugh Masekela, and received a rapturous standing ovation from members of Parliament (MPs), including the hard-to-please red berets, as EFF members are sometimes called. As a result, the song has become not only a political soundtrack, but also a factional descriptor.
It is unclear whether Carrim, who is also a speechwriter, named the group Thuma Mina when she created it or she renamed it after the song had become Ramaphosa’s political soundtrack. Former Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) spokesperson Sam Mkokeli claimed that the media group is just a platform to share public statements, so did Phumla Williams, a government spokesperson.
In a desperate effort to defend the media group, Williams claims, “The omnipresent WhatsApp is now often the primary means of communication when several parties are involved.” This is far from the truth, to put it mildly. Unlike Facebook, Twitter, and other open social platforms, a WhatsApp group is for a private, select communication.
Ironically, Williams paraphrased a statement by the South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF) in her desperate attempt to defend the Thuma Mina group. The irony of it is that SANEF is, in and of itself, a select forum of players, referees, and spectators at the same time. Apart from the fact that its prominent members have joined the group, it does not speak for all journalists.
Neither Mkokeli nor Williams has taken the trouble to explain why not all journalists knew about the group and are open to them. Clearly, they do not get it, do they? The question is not necessarily about the knowledge of the group or to whom it is limited; rather, it is about its name, which identifies them with a Ramaphosa faction.
In fact, journalists from Independent Media should dominate the group because, as Mkokeli and some among his fellow Sanef members contend, peddle fake news. In lieu of responding to questions from Mzilikazi Wa Afrika, an investigative journalist at the Sunday Independent, one of the titles owned by Independent Media, about qualifications of Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan’s chief-of-staff Nthabiseng Borotho, the department unprecedentedly issued a ‘cautionary notice to all media,’ most certainly written by Mkokeli.
“The Ministry of Public Enterprises must caution the media about news coverage that can be expected in the Sunday Independent newspaper tomorrow, which appears to be part of an ongoing campaign by the newspaper and a group of its so-called ‘investigative journalists’ to again tarnish the reputations and work of good, honest public servants with baseless insinuation,” read the note.
This, in essence, has become a departmental strategy to deal with questions from the newspaper.
Khusela Diko, a beleaguered presidential spokesperson, used the strategy to evade questions from the newspaper on whether her husband, Madzikane II Thandisizwe, was corruptly awarded a whopping R125 million contract to supply Gauteng’s Health Department with personal protective equipment (PPE) through his company, Royal Bhaca. It remains to be seen whether the DPE would continue to use the strategy under Richard Mantu, whom Mkokeli has condescendingly described as “a Sunday school teacher,” or a new spokesperson.
Seven months later, Wa Afrika once again sent questions to the DPE about Borotho’s appointment without a requisite qualification. This time, Gordhan had contracted a forensic company to investigate whistleblowers and Mkokeli, who has been removed from the WhatsApp media group following his fallout with the minister, must be one of them if a statement by his lawyer is anything to go by.
“We note with [an] extreme concern that Mkokeli who should be protected by the Protection Disclosures Act has been targeted,” read the statement.
In a set of leaked questions sent to Gordhan, who is regarded as a de facto president, Mkokeli asked: “Why has the dept opted to investigate leaks instead of the allegations against Ms Borotho?” If he had truthfully sought to answer the March questions, the witch-hunt would not have arisen. Instead, he opted to discredit the newspaper and two of its award-winning investigative journalists: Wa Afrika and Piet Rampedi.
When one pursues the statements on Borotho’s qualification and other allegations against her, including nepotism, the nuance lies with attitude. The March statement is thin on details, whereas the one issued in November, the time at which Mkokeli had been excluded from the communication machinery, answered many questions. Could this be the reason his former employer accused him of incompetence?
Mkokeli continued to attack the newspaper and its investigative journalists on Facebook. “The Sunday Independent train is never late, as they say,” he posted.
Replying to a comment from one of his friends about the post, he said: “[T]ired rogue unit and other jazz.” Gordhan is at the centre of the never-ending rogue unit saga at SARS, where he had served as commissioner for a decade before his appointment as finance minister in 2009.
The newspaper seems to have given Mkokeli a serious headache. He posted copies of City Press, Sunday Times, the Sunday Independent, and then asked his friends to delete one. It is given that he wanted them to choose the latter and one friend did.
Wa Afrika, Rampedi, and other investigative journalists at the Sunday Independent and other titles under Independent Media must be commended for breaking stories on CR17 Campaign, PPE corruption, and others of national importance, despite a concerted campaign to discredit them by their own collegial competitors. This, however, does not mean there are no problems with some of their stories.
Reacting to an opinion piece that I wrote entitled ‘Debunking the Gordhan myth,’ carried by the Sunday Independent, and shared on my Facebook page, Mkokeli reminded me of the one I wrote about Mosebenzi Zwane, a former mineral resources minister whose name features predominantly in allegations of state capture. Essentially, he wanted to identify me with a Zuma faction, but missed an important universal principle made in it, namely ‘innocent until proven guilty’. The ANC has conceded that it cannot defend this principle for political expediency.
Mine is not to derive pleasure from Mkokeli’s fallout with Gordhan, not by a long shot, but to highlight the error of judgement that he had made as a lesson for other journalists-turned government spokespersons. He had arrogated to himself to defend the minister against his adversaries, be it real or perceived, treating them with condescending sarcasm. I hope the resignation from the DPE heralds his next life.
* Molifi Tshabalala is a writer and independent political analyst
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of IOL.