The Star Must Apologise for Misleading its Readers

18 April 2018

An article which featured on the front page of The Star newspaper this morning has misled its readers through an egregious breach of Chapter 1 of the Press Code.

The article quotes the former MMC of Finance, ANC Councillor Geoff Makhubo extensively providing carefully selected snippets of the AG’s report absent context or information.

The journalist who wrote the article contacted Finance MMC, Cllr Funzela Ngobeni, at 18:00 yesterday evening and submitted questions for response at 18:52. This was clearly inadequate opportunity for the City to put its side on record and correct a number of misleading pieces of information in the article.

Below are some of the critical facts that would have been provided, had the journalist adhered to the Press Code:

1. The 2016/17 Financial year under review saw a decline in unauthorised expenditure from R692 million in 2015/16 to R502 million in 2016/17. The figure of unauthorised expenditure quoted in the article incorrectly refers to R675 million;

2.  Due to the City’s efforts to investigate cases of maladministration, R119 million of this has been identified by the City in the audit process;

3. This is reflected in the statement made by the AG in which he recorded in the audit report “The tone of the political and administrative leadership is a positive one that can drive good governance and clean administration.”;

4. The R3.1 Billion figure of irregular expenditure refers to a historical accumulation of yearly identified unauthorised expenditure from previous years, under the ANC’s leadership of the City. In the 2016/17 financial year under review R1.02 billion in irregular expenditure was incurred, and not the R3.1 billion figure quoted in the headline and article;

5. The City’s Group Forensics and Investigations Service Unit has 3500 cases under investigation totalling more than R18 billion. More has been done to investigate cases of maladministration than ever before. This was recorded in the AG’s report which recorded a record 77% of these cases were identified by the City;

6. This is despite the articles assertion that “irregular expenditure incurred by the municipality was not probed” is, ironically, an assessment of the City’s failure to investigate these cases historically rather than the 10 months the new multi-party government had been in office; and

7.  In the engagement between the AG and myself, we have established a task team between our respective offices that will ensure ongoing engagement around resolving audit queries throughout the year. This is another first in the history of the City of Johannesburg.

Had The Star bothered themselves with ensuring that a fair right of reply was afforded to the City, the article which may have featured today would have been fair and balanced as required by the Press Code.

The article fails to recognise that the multi-party government had been in office for 10 months at the time of the AG’s report. Many of the issues described in the article are the result of years of systemic failures and lack of accountability in the City.

This morning, we have written to the Editor of The Star newspaper indicating the falsehoods and misleading elements of the article, along with the violations of the Press Code.

We have indicated our requirement that an apology will be required. Should such an apology not be published, we will be laying a complaint with the Press Ombudsman.

Issued by Luyanda Mfeka, Director: Mayoral Communications, Executive Mayor, 18 April 2018