Mail & Guardian reporters Wally Mbhele and Mungo Soggot have won the prestigious Foreign Correspondents Association Press Award for their courageous investigative journalism.
Plaques honouring their achievement were presented on Thursday to the reporters by President Nelson Mandela, who was the guest of honour at the ceremony.
The award was established in 1995 to recognise, reward and encourage excellence in South African journalism. The awards committee said it was “duly impressed with the thoroughness and persistence of Mbhele and Soggot in reporting, among other topics, corruption in the Central Energy Fund and the scandal surrounding the arrest of Robert McBride”.
In announcing the awards, Hans Brandt, correspondent for the Frankfurter Rundschau and vice-chair of the association, said: “[Mbhele and Soggot] continued throughout the year to follow their stories and expose all sorts of shenanigans in the corridors of power.”
Other “highly commended” nominees were Greta Steyn of Business Day, Justin Arenstein of African Eye News, Stephen Laufer of Business Day and Robyn Curnow of SABC TV.