MiWay's all white board of directors equals 'theft' - BLF argues
Pretoria – Insurance company MiWay is guilty of theft because all its directors are white, Black First Land First (BLF) leader Andile Mngxitama argued on Friday.
"Us black people give this company money to make them rich. They among themselves sit as white board of directors, stealing money from us because we are the ones giving them this business," he said during a picket outside the company’s head office in Centurion.
The protest was prompted by an email, purportedly from a MiWay employee, calling its black clients baboons and stating that it had been decided at a meeting that it would reject 90% of black clients’ claims from August 1.
A screengrab of the email was circulated on social media.
"There was no such meeting where such a decision was taken," MiWay CEO Rene Otto said at the picket.
The BLF’s leaders and Otto held a meeting earlier. Otto disagreed with Mngxitama’s definition of theft.
The email was likely sent by a disgruntled client and criminal and civil cases would be pursued, the company said.
"We know the emails problems in this country. People’s names are tarnished because of fake emails which have been accepted as true," Mngxitama said.
He compared the way the "white media" was reporting on the MiWay email to its reporting of emails leaked from the Gupta family.
The latter, he reasoned, were accepted as being true because they showed "black corruption".
"When emails show white corruption, the media says no, these emails are fake."
"So when you allege black corruption we must accept that. But when there is white racism expressed in an email, we must accept that it’s fake? No."
He accused the company of racism as its entire board of directors was white.
"We agreed that in six months’ time when we meet, we will again see progress on that regard," said Mngxitama. Otto acknowledged this and said they were aware the board was not transformed.
"We will see the progress in six month’s time and hopefully the definition of theft will become softer," she said.
