By Staff Reporter
Construction Education and Training Authority (CETA) CEO Malusi Shezi has taken the Sunday Times and its journalist Sabelo Skiti to court. This is over a series of articles published from early July and this month which Shezi argues are defamatory.
In a matter at the Johannesburg High Court, Shezi is demanding a retraction, an apology and an interdict from publishing further articles on Shezi and CETA.
“The action of the applicant is premised on two articles and one headline,” Shezi said in court papers presented by Shezi’s attorney, Kgomotso Kabinde.
Shezi objects to the fact that the articles still appear on the Sunday Times website.
The articles centre on a claim that the Auditor-General found that the purchase of the CETA head office building was irregular, and that it made payments for a biometric system that did not exist nor has not been operational to benefit the organisation.
Shezi’s contention is that there are no such findings as the audit has not been finalised and a management report, ostensibly leaked to the Sunday Times, does not exist.
He argues that the claim, which the newspaper reported as a fact in the headline, has no basis.
However, the Sunday Times for its part argued through its attorney, Adrian Friedman, that the articles were not defamatory as some of the information has been ventilated in a public platform, in the form of the Standing Committee on Public Account (Scopa).
The Sunday Times conceded that while the document on which the claims were based was not a management report, it was in fact correspondence by the AG to the CETA board to communicate preliminary findings so that it had an opportunity to respond before the audit was finalised.
On the remedy sought by Shezi, the newspaper did not accede to a retraction or an apology. It argued that an interdict could not be applied retrospectively.
The matter relies on precedence from cases including a matter between the Economic Freedom Fighters and former finance minister Trevor Manuel, in which the EFF accused Manuel of “corrupt practices”.
Manuel won a retraction, but lost a damages claim of R500,000.
The case also relies on a matter between Manuel’s wife Maria Ramos and media group IOL as well a matter between former EFF politician Mbuyiseni Ndlozi and the Daily Sun, which carried a story in which Ndlozi was falsely accused of rape. This was despite Ndlozi not only denying the allegation, but also disputing his reported presence at the scene.
Judgment has been reserved.
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