/ 11 May 2004

Ranjeni comes in from the cold

Journalist Ranjeni Munusamy, who first aired allegations that Bulelani Ngcuka, the National Director of Public Prosecutions, was an apartheid spy, has been offered a job at <i>ThisDay</i> newspaper. Munusamy was cast into the wilderness after she took the story to <i>City Press</i> while she was still employed at the <i>Sunday Times</i>.

Journalist Ranjeni Munusamy, who first aired allegations that Bulelani Ngcuka, the National Director of Public Prosecutions, was an apartheid spy, has been offered a job at ThisDay newspaper.

Munusamy was cast into the wilderness after she took the story to City Press while she was still employed at the Sunday Times. The report was discredited by the Hefer Commission of Inquiry, which was set up to probe the allegations. Munusamy earlier claimed that she consulted about 15 sources for the story on Ngcuka. Ngcuka’s main accusers — Mo Shaik and Mac Maharaj — as well as former security policemen Gideon Nieuwoudt and Bernie Ley have since been revealed as among them.

Munusamy seems to have been casting around for a job since the scandal. She wrote two political opinion pieces on the leader pages of Business Day but was dropped after an uproar from staff.

Business Day editor Peter Bruce was not immediately available for comment on Tuesday morning.

Kevin Bloom, editor of The Media magazine, told the Mail & Guardian Online on Tuesday that ThisDay‘s decision to run Munusamy was “sad”.

“We have no shame. She is a totally disgraced journalist.

“Running Ranjeni is just sad. That a paper of that calibre would do it … you might expect it from one or two others.

ThisDay must have debated long and hard about whether to run her, contrary to what many newspaper editors think. I doubt Ferial [Haffajee, M&G editor] or Mondli [Makhanya, Sunday Times editor] would ever run her,” Bloom said.

Bloom said he would ask himself, when reading articles written by Munusamy, whether there was an agenda behind it.

“How do we know she was not a voice for some sort of faction?”

ThisDay editor Justice Malala confirmed that he has offered Munusamy a job as political reporter and said he will issue a statement later on Tuesday.