The ANC in Limpopo has been forced to retract its baseless claims against Sunday World after being confronted with facts.
The party had claimed that it was not contacted for comment regarding a story about the SACP’s call for the ANC national working committee (NWC) to intervene in the province.
This because embattled premier Stan Mathabatha allegedly failed to unite the tripartite alliance in the province, as well as failing to run the provincial government.
In a short statement released this week, provincial spokesperson Jimmy Machaka said the party “retracts its earlier statement in relation to the Sunday World publication response as far as it relates to the accusation of not being requested to reply”, adding that it “maintains its response to the contents of the SACP letter”.
Machaka said the ANC “apologises for the inconvenience” his earlier statement caused to the paper.
Last week, Sunday World reported that the SACP in Limpopo had submitted a 2 000-word document expressing its lack of confidence in Mathabatha, who is also the provincial chairperson of the ANC.
The confidential document, seen by Sunday World, was submitted to the NWC and called for the governing party to make “urgent interventions as may be necessary to rescue the situation in the province”.
On Friday last week, Sunday World contacted Machaka telephonically and through a WhatsApp message. However, he did not answer the phone or return the call.
A Sunday World journalist followed up with a WhatsApp message asking him specific questions about the SACP’s call for the ANC to take action against Mathabatha.
“I need a comment of the ANC on the scathing submission the SACP in Limpopo made to the NWC requesting urgent intervention in the ANC leadership of the province ahead of the 2024 elections,” read a WhatsApp message.
Again, Machaka did not bother to respond to the message. Instead, he issued a statement claiming that he was not contacted for comment.
Machaka’s statement, littered with factual inaccuracies, questioned Sunday World’s journalistic ethics and claimed that the article was written by acting editor Ngwako Malatji, even though Tshwarelo Hunter Mogakane was the author.
“The ANC Limpopo noted that the Sunday World article relating to the SACP submissions [sic] making founds [sic] on various media platforms,” stated Machaka’s statement.
“Sadly the Sunday World journalist [sic] Mr Ngwako Malatji alleges that the ANC Limpopo spokesperson was not reachable prior [to the] publication.
“The ANC Limpopo spokesperson Cde [comrade] Machaka Mathole Jimmy hereby denies to have ever been called [sic] by the journalist [sic] and if he was unreachable the colleague [sic] could have drop [sic] a text or WhatsApp message to that effect.
“However, none of the above was done, resulting in the newspaper publishing a story about ANC Limpopo without having afforded us the opportunity to reply to the allegations.”
Machaka first made the allegations that he was not afforded an opportunity to comment in a discussion over the phone with Sunday World’s acting editor.
This after Malatji had explained the facts to Machaka’s colleague, Aluwani Netsianda, who enquired about the story.
It was only after Machaka was confronted with screen shots of messages sent to him by the journalist that he backtracked on his claims.
He alleged that he did not know who the journalist was and which newspaper he worked for. This despite him having previously interacted with the same journalist about party events including the ANC’s 111th celebration in Sekhukhune in February.
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