Riyaz Patel
EFF leader Julius Malema has ‘banned’ investigative journalism units amaBhungane, Daily Maverick and Scorpio from attending party events.
Malema made the announcement during the EFF memorial service for former Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe in Soweto, Thursday.
Malema said the three news entities should be treated as the enemy, much like the EFF did when it banned Gupta-owned The New Age newspaper and broadcaster ANN7.
“We must never rely on the media to wage a revolution.”
The move comes after the units published an exposé on Malema, party deputy president Floyd Shivambu and Shivambu’s brother Brian, as well as Malema’s cousin, implicating them in the illicit flow of funds.
Mapping out the VBS money trail, Scorpio said it had uncovered a R16.1m transfer from VBS to Brian Shivambu’s company Sgameka Projects – effectively a shell company, News 24 reported.
Scorpio found that at least R5.3m of the R16.1m flowed to Mahuna Investments, according to official Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) documents.
Scorpio reported that Malema used Mahuna Investments’ business account as his “personal slush fund and alter ego.”
“Our people will never be told by Daily Maverick and amaBhungane who their leaders are,” Malema told supporters.
“It’s not coverage what you are giving to us. It’s nonsense.”
He described the three publications as frauds, designed to pursue the interest of Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan.
“We declare them as an enemy of the revolution, they should never participate in our events, we should never answer any question from amaBhungane, Daily Maverick from Scorpio. Let them write any nonsense they want to write about us. We know [the person] who writes their questions is Pravin.”
Malema said he was not concerned about media reaction, as they had already painted him as a pariah.
“We shall treat them as enemies. Anyone who wants to go into solidarity with them in the media houses, you are more than welcome. Anyway, we are not getting any coverage. It’s not coverage what you are giving to us. It’s nonsense.”
He also accused broadcast news channel eNCA of manipulating stories against him to portray him as a gangster.
He further claimed the media had an agenda to distort pictures, to darken his likeness, in order to make him appear undesirable.
“We must never rely on the media to wage a revolution. We must rely on the ground, we must do door to door. We just do person to person… We don’t need to go between, because they distort what we stand for.”
