Oilgate company Imvume Management has constructed what appears to be a deliberate smear against the Mail & Guardian, claiming the newspaper had leaked information to an opposition party in contravention of a high court order.
Imvume’s smear implicates M&G chief operating officer Hoosain Karjieker in a conspiracy with the Freedom Front Plus and the Democratic Alliance to defeat a controversial gagging order Imvume had obtained against the newspaper last year.
M&G editor Ferial Haffajee and Karjieker this week flatly denied the allegations. Haffajee said: “Newspapers rely on their credibility. By putting such information into the public domain, Imvume is launching a direct attack on our reputation. They will not succeed.”
Imvume relies on ostensibly private information — partly false and partly misconstrued — to construct its version of the “leak”. Imvume this week refused to produce the “evidence” or say how it had been obtained, claiming the M&G wanted only “to fashion [its] denial around indisputable facts”.
The M&G revealed in May last year that Imvume had diverted R11-million in state oil money to the African National Congress. Imvume then obtained a high court order barring dissemination of information the M&G had planned to publish in a follow-up article: that Imvume had also made payments to Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka’s brother and towards the renovation of Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya’s home.
Soon after, the same information was revealed by the FF+ under the cover of parliamentary privilege. As this made the gag academic, Imvume agreed to have it dropped. But the company started new litigation against both the M&G and FF+: it demanded that the newspaper reveal its sources for the information on Imvume’s financial arrangements, and it claimed the FF+ had contravened the gag order.
The M&G and the FF+ are defending these cases. While the FF+ may be covered by parliamentary privilege, it may well be that whomever leaked the information to the FF+ is guilty of contravening the gag order — an offence punishable by imprisonment.
This is what Imvume is now claiming: that the M&G, through Karjieker, was responsible for the leak. Imvume boss Sandi Majali first raised the claim in an affidavit two weeks ago, saying that Imvume lawyer Barry Aaron had received “information that a representative of [the M&G] had willfully and in blatant disregard of the terms of the gagging order leaked the information to FF+ …”
Imvume last week aired part of the claim in a press release. When the M&G’s lawyers pressed Imvume for further details, it provided this version in writing:
- Karjieker was the “controlling mind” and “author” of the leak.
- Karjieker first approached a representative of the DA, wanting to leak the gagged information and have the DA raise it under the cover of parliamentary privilege.
- The DA representative referred Karjieker to the FF+. The DA representative did, however, undertake to “provide and facilitate” funding to help the M&G defend Imvume’s court action.
- Karjieker then proposed the leak to Willie Spies, an FF+ MP.
- At Karjieker’s instance, an M&G accounts manager couriered the information to Cape Town on May 30 last year, using First Light Couriers. The FF+ received the documents the following day.
M&G records show that indeed the M&G accounts manager sent an envelope to Cape Town on May 30, using First Light Couriers. The envelope, however, went to the M&G’s Cape Town office — a common event — and not to the FF+. How Imvume obtained details of the courier transaction remains to be explained.
Equally baffling are Imvume’s detailed allegations about conversations between Karjieker, the unnamed DA representative and Spies.
It is possible that there were phone calls between the M&G’s offices and those of political parties around that time, as the M&G is in the business of gathering news. But Karjieker, the DA and Spies this week issued blanket denials that they had been in contact as alleged.
Karjieker said: “These allegations are completely baseless and without foundation. I have never made contact, nor attempted to make contact with any of the members of the Democratic Alliance or the Freedom Front in respect of this matter … I take great exception to my name being slandered in this manner.”
The FF+’s Spies said in a statement: “We strongly deny any allegations that we collaborated with Mail & Guardian or any members of its staff in defiance of the court order.”
DA chief whip Douglas Gibson said in a statement that his party had “at no stage” been approached by the newspaper to receive the gagged information; that the DA did not refer the M&G to the FF+; and that the DA did not undertake to provide and facilitate legal funding for the M&G.
The M&G has received no funding from, or facilitated by, the DA.
In reply to M&G questions, Imvume this week said, through Aaron, that “the information and documentary evidence [regarding the leak] came to us in the pursuit of legitimate investigations and enguiries in the course of existing and contemplated litigation”. Aaron denied he or his clients had obtained the information through “illegal, unlawful or inappropriate behaviour”.
On Thursday, Imvume issued a press release repeating the allegations in detail and vowing to bring contempt of court proceedings against the M&G.
Haffajee said Imvume was trying, through its litigation, “to bankrupt us to keep us quiet. It is an age-old trick. It will not work.”