Justice and Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola has been slapped with a whopping R5-million defamation lawsuit by the Radical Economic Transformation Zuma Support Group led by ANC heavyweight Carl Niehaus.
Other group members, who are also applicants in the matter, are Sibusiso Hadebe, Mabel Rweqana, Euginia Motloung, Mthokozisi Dhlamini, Martha Tinyiko Sambo and MangalisoNgwenya.
The lawsuit, which was filed at the Joburg high court last week, stemmed from comments Lamola allegedl made in Tembisa recently in which he called Niehaus and the group “thieves who stole money from government”.
The group filed the lawsuit after the ANC national executive committee (NEC) apparently turned a blind eye to a letter it wrote to the party’s highest decision-making body to take disciplinary action against Lamola.
In his founding affidavit, Niehaus said they had organised a press conference in which they critiqued Zuma’s alleged ill-treatment by the National Prosecution Authority at Booysens Hotel and Conference Centre in Joburg on February 12. They said Lamola later insulted them at an ANC event in Ivory Park in Tembisa on February 17 by calling them “thieves who stole government money”.
Niehaus, who is a senior manager in the office of ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule,
said Lamola’s utterances, which were broadcast on various SABC platforms, were defamatory, without basis and false.
“I and other applicants have never stolen government money, and we are not thieves. The
respondent has no evidence to support his statement,” reads the papers.
He said as a result of Lamola’ defamatory statement, which he believed was taken seriously because of his position as minister of justice, they were being treated with severe aversion, suspicion and hostility by the public, including ANC members.
“The statement has also caused severe harm and embarrassment to our families.”
The members also said they were aggrieved by Lamola’s utterance as they found them disrespectful as he was their junior.
“This is certainly not the manner in which a young comrade, who is junior to most of us, should conduct himself towards his seniors, who are his elders, ANC and MK veterans. Such behaviour is alien to our African culture of respect for elders and certainly contrary to the political culture of respect for veterans and their experience that is ingrained in the African National Congress. We call on the national executives of the ANC to take comrade Lamola to task for his unbecoming conduct and discipline him,” read the papers.
He asked the court to interdict Lamola from making further statements about them and also pay them R5-million in damages.
