Daily Maverick rubbishes Ndlozi’s query on the ‘obvious lie’ it received R300K from CR17

Founder and editor-in-chief of the Daily Maverick Branko Brkic insists the online publication never received any money from President Cyril Ramaphosa’s CR17 campaign and it is not connected in any way to Maverick State, a company named in a Sunday Independent report over the weekend as having received R300,000 as part of a group of “politicians, campaign managers and strategists” who “earned millions” for their role in the campaign.

This follows Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) national spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi taking to Twitter to ask the publication if any such connection existed.

“It’s so ridiculous that I’m surprised you actually don’t do a CIPC search rather than following the EFF’s trolling,” Brkic said.

“This is such an obvious lie that someone should be able to see it from 10,000 metres,” he added. He expressed the view that he does not believe the matter should be reported on, as it was part of the EFF’s “ridiculous campaign” and “writing about it spreads it”.

A search for Maverick State through the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC), sent to us by Brkic, revealed the company in question is actually based in Melrose Arch, with Halga Ninow-Cohen listed as its director.

READ MORE: EFF slams eNCA after owner exposed as a CR17 funder

This matches up with addresses found online for Mohlaleng Media, a company that made news in 2016 when then Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Athol Trollip released a statement saying he had frozen a contract with them after finding they had been paid over R20 million by the municipality – money “allegedly used to remunerate political appointments under the former administration”.

“This bears all the hallmarks of an irregular contract,” Trollip said.

Mohlaleng Investments has no website and scant listed contact details. The Citizen has attempted to contact the company as well as Ninow-Cohen for comment and will continue to do so.

Ndlozi asked Daily Maverick what he described as two “simple questions”. The first was whether the publication was linked to Maverick State, and the second  was whether a journalist named “Rebecca” in an email provided in Ndlozi’s tweet was a well-known Daily Maverick journalist and author, Rebecca Davis.

The answer to the second question was also no, according to Brkic, who said that the Rebecca in question is an American journalist and the Joe Trippi named in the email Ndlozi refers to is a political strategist for the Democratic Party in the US.

The second question dealt with an email that doesn’t appear to be mentioned in either the Sunday Independent story or an earlier one on News24 that exposed leaked emails sent by the CR17 campaign. Where it comes from is unclear, with Ndlozi failing to respond to questions at the time of publication.

The Sunday Independent article published over the weekend was co-written by a trio that included Piet Rampedi and Mzilikazi wa Afrika – two of the journalists behind now discredited Sunday Times reports on the so-called Sars “rogue unit”. They both parted ways with the Sunday Times after these reports were retracted and apologised for when the media ombudsman found them to be “inaccurate, misleading, and unfair”.

READ MORE: Why Mkhwebane’s ‘rogue unit’ report is deeply flawed

Titled “How the CR17 campaign funds were channeled”, in the piece the Sunday Independent reported that they had seen the campaign’s bank records, as well as emails and financial statements which identified the beneficiaries of the “R1 billion” campaign fund, who according to the story were “politicians, campaign managers and strategists” who “earned millions for their roles in Ramaphosa’s” successful CR17 campaign for the ANC presidency.

They alleged that some of Ramaphosa’s main funders were numerous wealthy businesspeople, including mining magnate Nicky Oppenheimer, who reportedly gave R10 million, Pick n Pay founder Raymond Ackerman, who gave R1 million and eNCA founder, director and owner of Hosken Consolidated Investments Johnny Copelyn, who donated an alleged R2 million on behalf of the news channel. Former Absa CEO Maria Ramos was another alleged donor.

In a story in the Daily Maverick, Stephen Grootes commented that the Sunday Independent report reflects “a certain politics playing out among media organisations reporting on the issue”.

Grootes noted that the Sunday Independent had contacted Brkic for comment and asked if the Daily Maverick received payment from the CR17 campaign team, and that Brkic responded “Nope, never. Have no idea what you’re talking about. We’re not in connection with anything called Maverick State whatsoever. Or CR17 in any way.”

“Of course, that did not stop the trolls, both real and digital, from making up and repeating the accusation that Daily Maverick was paid by CR17. Reverberators of that many-times-repeated lie, among others, included EFF spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi,” Grootes wrote.

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