DA submits supplementary evidence to Ethics Committee regarding Mantashe bribery allegations
20 January 2021
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has written to the Registrar of Parliament’s Ethics Committee, Advocate Anthea Gordon, to submit supplementary evidence to our previous request for the Committee to investigate allegations that Mineral Resources Minister, Gwede Mantashe, bribed two Sunday World journalists with R70 000 to make a story about his personal life “disappear”.
In the 27 October 2019 edition of the Sunday World, the Minister was quoted stating: “Two journalists from your publication called me for the same story. So, you are the third person to call me for the same story, do you also want money? I paid them and now you are calling about the same story. Every time I asked them when they will publish the story, they told me the evidence is destroyed. I begged them not to write the story, I paid two journalists at your publication. I will not reveal their names, you can ask amongst your colleagues and ask Lerato to tell you their names. You can go ahead and write the story, that is my comment.”
The South African National Editors Forum commissioned an independent inquiry to probe ethical practice within the media sector including these allegations and on Monday released the following damning findings related to the Minister:
Minister Gwede Mantashe showed “executive contempt” for the media when he made public allegations that he had paid R70,000 to Sunday World journalists to kill a story about him.