SABC editor was asked not to report on Nene’s sacking and falling rand, Zondo hears

The SABC’s economics editor, Thandeka Gqubule-Mbeki, was requested not to report on the political events and the implications they had on the rand at the time following the December 2015 axing of then finance minister Nhlanhla Nene, the commission of inquiry into state capture heard on Thursday.

Former president Jacob Zuma fired Nene on 9 December 2015, and replaced him with backbencher member of parliament (MP) Des Van Rooyen, leading to the plummeting of the rand.

Testifying at the commission on Thursday, Gqubule-Mbeki said a day or two after Nene’s sacking she was approached by a former senior in news management at the SABC, Nothando Maseko, who, in general, requested her to steer away from mentioning Zuma’s decision to fire Nene and the political factors affecting the rand at the time.

Gqubule-Mbeki said she was baffled by this request and did not respond immediately, adding that during the time “the rand was doing something unique”.

She said she also found the request strange because similar events were happening in Brazil and Mexico but she had not been requested to overlook those when reporting on the currencies of those countries.

Gqubule-Mbeki described the request as “treasonous”, explaining that when reporting “it is not possible to extricate political uncertainty from market movements”.

Furthermore, she said the request was “alarming and annoying” and “illogical” and did not adhere to journalistic principles.

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The commission also heard that Nyana Molete “rather reluctantly” gave Gqubule-Mbeki a file which contained “frivolous” allegations of misdemeanours allegedly committed by former finance minister Pravin Gordhan at Sars.

Gqubule-Mbeki said the allegations in the file were made by individuals it was apparent disliked Gordhan and that she could not find any wrongdoing on the part of the minister.

She ignored the file and later was called by a relative who informed her that Jimmy Manyi had said she was sitting on a file containing allegations levelled against Gordhan.

Gqubule-Mbeki said she then informed Molete that she would not report on the allegations until those who had levelled them completed affidavits under oath at a police station and charges were brought against Gordhan, explaining that she did not want the SABC having to deal with a defamation case.

She told the commission that had she reported on the file she would have besmirched Gordhan’s name on spurious grounds.

She added that Molete had casually mentioned that Manyi had been anxious about the file being reported on.

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