/ 3 October 2008

Mboweni denies shareholder’s allegations

South African Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni did not apologise on Friday for an allegedly racist jibe he is accused of making to a shareholder at the bank’s September 18 annual general meeting.

Instead, he denied the allegations in a letter written by his lawyers to shareholder Mario Pretorius.

Earlier this week, Pretorius threatened to institute a R1-million claim against Mboweni and the bank should he not make a public apology by Friday.

”We’re going to go and fight Goliath,” he said on Friday after receiving the response from Mboweni’s lawyers.

Pretorius claims he twice asked to bring a point of order at the AGM. When his request was not acknowledged by Mboweni, he said ”shocking”.

”I shall not permit you to talk to me like whites used to talk to blacks,” Mboweni allegedly retorted.

In their letter to Pretorius on Friday, attorneys for the bank and Mboweni said they did not intend to deal with the allegations Pretorius had raised ”at this time”.

They reserved the right to do so ”in the future, should the need arise”.

However, they said their clients denied the allegations, in particular the ”construction of events” Pretorius wanted to ”attach to the events” at the AGM.

They denied that there was ”any basis” for Pretorius to demand or require an apology from Mboweni and the bank.

”It therefore follows that any action instituted by your client against our clients will be opposed,” the attorneys wrote.

Pretorius said the options he was now considering were approaching the South African Human Rights Commission and the Constitutional Court, and bringing claims for crimen injuria and defamation.

”I am going to do everything in my power to set this thing right,” he said, adding that his aim was to clear his name.

In a statement replying to Mboweni’s letter, Pretorius described his refusal to apologise as a ”milestone in disappointment” for every South African ”cruelly branded with the shameful and divisive word ‘racist”’.

He had tried to keep the spirit of reconciliation alive in the past two weeks, ”but it now seems to be dying”.

”Soon expensive lawyers will be picking over its bones and pronouncing on the dry legalities of the events and the mechanics of law.

”It is still my hope that good sense will prevail and that national interest will take precedence over personal ego.

”I have also examined and re-examined my own motives and I am clear that with this small stand against racism and abuse I am saluting the many and varied South Africans who had taken an often difficult stand on principle.” — Sapa