The Gauteng branch of the South African National Civic Organisation’s (Sanco) request for an investigation into the Sunday Times editor was ”legitimate”, the national leadership said on Friday.
This conflicted with an earlier statement by a Sanco national executive committee (NEC) member who rejected the provincial body’s call for a probe.
A later statement emailed on Friday from the Sanco national office said the Gauteng branch had the ”right to request” that editor Mondli Makhanya be investigated by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).
”Therefore we cannot as Sanco national reject their request.”
However, earlier in the day, NEC member Dumisani Mthalane rejected this call, saying the request had never been discussed.
”The general secretary doesn’t know anything about it,” he told the South African Press Association.
Mthalane said the call had come from a group that existed parallel to the official provincial Sanco structure in Gauteng.
But the later statement said a letter received by Sanco president Mlungisi Hlongwane from Sanco Gauteng was ”legitimate” and ”supported by Sanco national leadership”.
Mthalane was not the Sanco national spokesperson and it was unfortunate that he had alleged ”political conspiracies”, the statement said.
According to the Sanco website, the names of the Gauteng chairperson and secretary were different to those on a statement sent on Thursday that called for the probe.
Sanco NEC member Donovan Williams said this was because new leadership had been elected for the province but had not been amended on the website.
”Any individual in the country can initiate actions with any authority of the state with the view to promote the provisions of the law and any other legal process to protect the rights of citizens,” the later statement said.
In the initial statement, Sanco Gauteng said it had formally requested that Makhanya be investigated by the NPA for not applying for amnesty from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
This stemmed from Makhanya’s alleged time as a member of a self-defence unit in KwaZulu-Natal in the late 1980s to early 1990s, they said.
The Sunday Times Staff Association declared ”unanimous support” for Makhanya and called the request a ”cynical and transparent smear being levelled against him by opponents of the newspaper”.
”The association regards it as sinister that the old and well-known story about Makhanya’s youthful activities in an African National Congress self-defence unit should now be trotted out in lame and blatant retaliation for the newspaper’s revelations about Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang,” the association said.
The newspaper recently alleged that Tshabalala-Msimang was an alcoholic and convicted thief, leading to widespread media coverage and debate.
The ANC-led government and President Thabo Mbeki have stood behind Tshabalala-Msimang.
The NPA confirmed receiving the faxed request on Friday, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported. — Sapa