Michael Beaumont’s open letter to Tony Leon: ‘Please remember to send those papers’

As a matter of fact, what is beginning to emerge resembles, in my opinion, a state capture racket, and this is why ActionSA has called on the President to institute an investigation into the actions of Resolve Communications.

Reports have now emerged from the former DA leader that Resolve Communications engaged the DA minister of Communications, Solly Malatsi, on behalf of Elon Musk’s Starlink. This is the same Solly Malatsi who has, presumably subsequently, published equity alternatives to pave the way for Starlink to enter the communications space in South Africa.

The same former DA leader confirmed that he met with Starlink at the urging of Resolve Communications, during which meeting Starlink representatives, according to the former DA leader’s account, complained to him about the slow pace of work by Malatsi.

Are we really expected to believe that this meeting was not intentionally set up with Solly Malatsi’s then party leader, the person who appointed him to the position of communications minister, with the specific intent of bringing undue pressure to bear on Malatsi to act in Starlink’s interests?

The same former DA minister of agriculture has alleged that Resolve Communications engaged him to take meetings with clients of Resolve Communications and, curiously, at no point did he deny that such meetings took place. He also goes on to say that Resolve Communications represented the organisations that pressured for his removal. So now, to the ability to influence, we add the dimension of Resolve Communications being instrumental in the firing of ministers. Does that ring a bell (Pottinger), Tony?

Yesterday, the DA’s former minister of forestry, fisheries and the environment (gosh, a lot of former ministers in your wake) confirmed that Resolve Communications repeatedly pressured him to meet with clients of Resolve Communications, even while those clients were engaged in litigation against the department. For what it is worth, he too states that he believes the campaign to remove him was backed by Resolve Communications.

We already published the story of you setting up a meeting with Herman Mashaba, when he was mayor of Joburg in 2019, under the false pretence of discussing matters pertaining to the party. When you arrived, apparently the only matter on your agenda was advocating for an R300 million contract for one of your clients in the City of Joburg.

Mashaba kicked you out of his house, but you sure got him back when you chaired the DA’s FedEx-appointed committee reviewing the party’s governments in the wake of the DA’s poor 2019 electoral showing and chose to blame Mashaba’s government, in part, for that showing.

What is emerging is a discernible pattern of influence being brought to bear upon senior government representatives, but seemingly only those under DA control. What’s up with that, Tony? I suppose, like the Guptas, state capture began with party capture, and you appear to have used your position as the former leader and elder of the Democratic Alliance to the advantage of Resolve Communications.

You see, Tony, this is where your statement lacks credibility for a PR firm. You claim that Resolve Communications is not a political actor and merely a corporate firm. Resolve Communications, and the DA notably, have trotted out the exact same coordinated line about “lobbying” being a normal corporate practice in the corporate interface with government. But, Tony, you chair the committees that stitch up the fate of DA leaders. You personally headed the DA’s team to negotiate the establishment of the GNU, including the composition of the same Cabinet on whose doors you later came knocking on behalf of your clients.

So, when Solly Malatsi is invited, as Communications Minister, to a meeting with Starlink by your firm, it was not just a meeting requested by a normal corporate citizen, was it? Rather, it was a meeting requested by the person who negotiated Solly Malatsi’s party’s entry into the GNU and its stewardship of the Ministry of Communications. The DA even nominated you as the replacement GNU Ambassador to replace Ebrahim Rasool, where you would have been required to represent our country’s efforts to dispel the deliberate lies about white genocide perpetuated by the very same Elon Musk, whose Starlink pays your firm to represent its interests in South Africa. Not many firms claiming to be apolitical actors have that kind of political backstage pass. It all appears very Saxonwold-esque, doesn’t it?

So, Tony, rattle that sabre all you like and threaten ActionSA with defamation cases, but we are not going to back down because I have come to learn it is much easier to threaten court than it is to proceed to it. Judging by the smoke that is rising in this matter, the very last thing you will do is give us the official legal platform to subpoena those clients who have met with Ministers, and the former Ministers and Mayors themselves who claim to have been pressured by Resolve Communications. Please issue the papers, Tony. We would love to get those people on the record under oath and see just how transparent you really want to be.

Doubting that you will offer such a platform, ActionSA has engaged the President to convene an urgent investigation into this matter. We are issuing parliamentary questions to all DA Ministers and Deputy Ministers to learn the nature of these engagements. We will be calling on the DA Minister of Communications to appear before the parliamentary portfolio committee to answer questions about the purported “lobbying” on behalf of Starlink in relation to his publication of equity alternatives. We will also be asking the committee to summon Resolve Communications before the parliamentary portfolio committee to answer the many questions that are developing.

Perhaps, to you, we are too simplistic when we assert that what is wrong is wrong. State capture and corruption do not have a particular race or party, even if one party has had exclusive access to the trough over the last 32 years. Now, under the same GNU that you led the negotiations to establish, it seems the opposition will have to be extra vigilant, as access to the levers of power appears to have adopted the GNU’s spirit of multi-party co-operation.

Please remember to send those papers.

Kind regards,

Michael Beaumont