M&G investigative reporter, Adriaan Basson, has won the investigative journalism section of the Mondi Shanduka Newspaper Awards. This is his story behind the story.
When the head of the Special Investigating Unit (SIU), Willie Hofmeyr, stood up in Parliament in November 2009 and shocked the nation with tales of crude favouritism, bribery and fraud at South Africa’s prisons department, it came as sweet vindication for my investigation spanning three years.
During my investigation I nurtured numerous sources over a long period of time. I finally reaped the benefits when a batch of documents was leaked to me in the proverbial brown envelope, containing several “smoking guns”.
I’ve been studying the Bosasa contracts since 2006 and never stopped asking questions, phoning people and collecting documents.
My investigation intensified in January 2009 after Bosasa was awarded yet another multimillion-rand tender by the prisons department.
After I published an article (January 23) asking serious questions of the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) for awarding yet another tender to Bosasa, the department placed expensive advertisements in two Sunday newspapers, urging members of the public with evidence of wrongdoing to come forward. The Mail & Guardian answered then minister Ngconde Balfour’s call on January 30 by publishing a litany of email correspondence between Bosasa’s chief operating officer and the department’s finance chief (Patrick Gillingham), showing a blatant corrupt relationship between the parties.
Shortly after the publication of this series I started receiving threatening telephone calls from anonymous “Bosasa employees”, accusing me of putting their jobs at risk. In February I was also called by a woman I later identified as communication strategist Benedicta Dube.
Dube claimed to be sympathetic to my cause, but throughout our conversation read to me from a so-called ‘surveillance report” that was allegedly commissioned by Bosasa, reading out the names of my friends, addresses of my residences, academic information and even my place of birth. In May the M&G decided to publish all instances where we have been spied on and included Dube’s attempts to intimidate me.
The M&G was also continuously threatened with legal action by Bosasa’s lawyers. Bosasa never pursued criminal charges against the M&G and me, but in July they issued summons against us, claiming damages of R500 000 in the South Gauteng High Court for alleged defamation. The M&G is defending the case and we are satisfied that we have more than enough proof to justify labelling the relationship between the parties as “corrupt”.
The story’s impact has been far-reaching.
- Through constantly reporting on the issue and enquiring about progress with their investigation, the M&G kept the SIU under pressure to finalise its probe;
- After revealing the department’s decision not to renew its contract with the SIU, the department was pressurised into extending its contract with the graft-busting unit;
- The SIU has handed their report to the National Prosecuting Authority, who must decide whether to institute criminal proceedings against the parties;
- Gillingham’s role in the scandal has been kept under wraps since 2008, when he was placed on suspension. The M&G revealed him as Bosasa’s key man in the department. He is currently facing a disciplinary hearing;
- Bosasa has been struggling to obtain financing for new projects because of the negative publicity and recently lost two major projects due to a lack of investment, and
- Although I have no primary proof that he was fired for this, Balfour, who was under huge pressure for defending Bosasa and Gillingham in public, didn’t return as minister after the 2009 general election.
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