Right to Reply: The full-length, unedited WB Noka Consortium's rebuttal

The below is the rebuttal, written by Sheriff Molefe, from the WB-Noka Consortium. We are carrying a summary (due to print space constraints) of the rebuttal to our November front page article “Who’s investing R6-bn in Emgwenya?” in our December edition, which is distributed throughout the heart of Mpumalanga, and at the Machado toll plaza from today.

Who’s is investing R6 billion in Emgwenya?

The answer to the topic of your article published in your November issue is: WB-NOKA Development Consortium, made up of four companies, Koplan Consultants, Chrome Ore Loading Trust, Bunger & Associates and Home Grown Supplies Solutions.

Not for one moment, did we think that project at Emgwenya would not raise spectre of doubt, scepticism and suspicion. We anticipated that some in the community of Emakhazeni would react to the project with disbelief, cynicism and outright dismissive gestures. That is natural reaction to anything that looks extra-ordinarily good. The philosophy of a “public good” has slowly been eroding away since the beginning of mankind therefore it is painfully normal for people of Emgwenya whose town has been mired in a downward social and economic spiral for decades. It is inconceivable for any investor to choose to invest over six billion rand in a place like Emgwenya but WB-NOKA Development Consortium is not “just any” investor and Emgwenya is not just another town somewhere in the buttocks of South Africa. Emgwenya has attributes that cannot be found anywhere in the world which give the place an edge over any other would-be destination of our investment.

The object of this piece is to correct perceptions that your article might, wittingly or unwittingly, have planted in the minds of your readers about the project and the Consortium:

·        If the Consortium seemed to be indifferent to your questions, it was not out of a desire to stonewall the media but it was borne out of terms of engagement and protocol requirements we have to adhere to at certain development phases of the process. Until the PPP has been signed, sealed and delivered and the Executive Mayor has publicly made a pronouncement on the project, the Consortium cannot be seen consorting with anyone, including the media on the project. It is the duty of the Mayor and the Council to protect the interest of the people whose aspirations and values define the offices they hold. They are beholden to the people of Emakhazeni and until they are satisfied that the project has addressed the interest of the people that elevated them to the lofty corridors they are occupying, the Consortium’s preoccupation at this point is to adhere to all legal requisites set out in a myriad of legislation, policies, regulations and plans of government. The media has a very important role to play in the development of Emakhazeni which will be articulated towards the last paragraphs of this piece. 

·    Your altercation with Mr. Ignas Oberholzer is very unfortunate but has nothing to do with WB-NOKA Development Consortium. Mr. Oberholzer is neither a member nor has he any interest in the Consortium. Our relationship with Mr. Oberholzer is restricted to mere normal consultations which we have held with many citizens of Emakhazeni running to the Public Participation events which were held in the town of Emgwenya. We must admit, however, that we find him very knowledgeable of the place and his desire to help in actualization of the development in the municipality is underscored by unrivalled passion. The only thing that WB-NOKA DC wants to ‘break’ in Emgwenya is the spine of underdevelopment and inter-generational poverty, not people’s legs. 

·     Your coverage of who the member companies of the Consortium are, leaves so much to be desired. You concentrated on one Member company, Home Grown Supplies Solutions, by the time you were done with it, it was so battered and pulverized beyond recognition. If we did not know better we would, with a good measure of justification, concluded that you were accusing the consortium of implied corruption and associated ills that beset government administrations. To start with, the two ‘directors’ you have named in your article are complete strangers to the company. The rest of your article is predicated on the two individuals you claim are owners of Home Grown Supplies Solutions and therefore can be described as an absolute waste of ink and paper. The company has not even the remotest links with any of the people you have mentioned in your article, least of all, the Premier of Limpopo and Mr. Julius Malema. 

·        We implore you to retract the factually devoid maze of linkages the article is making. The subliminal messages of perceived association with powerful politicians and the suggested award of tenders based on patronage is completely wrong and a fabrication of dizzying heights.

The media has to uphold unquestionable ethics and ethos. The Consortium has, through engagement with Emakhazeni community, made a startling revelation on the mind-set commonly prevalent in the municipality which is that of a defeated people who do not believe that their towns can be transformed into modern world class habitats. We have established that many promises of glitterati have been made in the past with no results. Without fail we have been bombarded with questions which reveal that the people of the municipality do not think that they are worthy of such expensive attention. 

The media has a role to play in rekindling the spirit of self-worth, pride and dignity amongst the people of the area. It is very unfortunate for the media, without justification, to jump on the bandwagon of non-believing and a posture of planting unjustified resistance. When the media assume a confrontational stance and begin to smudge and attack the reputations of people and companies they know very little about then our country is in trouble. In an effort to assert media independence, in this case, we see the media setting off a veld fire and hoping that it will only burn the alien invasive species while miraculously circumventing the life-sustaining ecosystem. 

While we are aggrieved by the article we also acknowledge that this matter could have been handled differently on our part to avoid what has finally transpired. It is for this reason that we have decided to follow the route of a rebuttal rather than that of legal confrontation. We commit to working with the media from hereon in providing information to avoid misinformation mishaps such as the one in your November article. Yours and other smaller media houses whose threshold and circulation jurisdiction falls within the perimeter of the Municipality have, by your geographic location, become a pivotal stakeholder to this project which burdens you with the ideals of staving off any untoward interventions from outside of the area unless they have merit. 

The Consortium has already spent obscene amounts of money and man-hours in an effort to make the project a reality. We have been to the Emakhazeni Municipality so many times that it has become a home away from home, we have met and reached ground-breaking agreements with the mining houses in the area, we have taken the project to the Provincial Cabinet wherein it was endorsed as an official programme of government, we have held two very engaging public participation events which unanimously endorsed the project, we have been vetted by the National Treasury who subsequently became the Transactional Advisors of the project and are responsible for brokering a fair and just PPP Agreement, we have been to the Reserve Bank of South Africa for further vetting processes of the protocols and viability of the foreign direct investment (FDI) we will be bringing to these shores. 

Surely, the media will not be privy to the body of all these negotiations unless we have given them the information which up to now except for the public participation processes we have not divulge to any other person or institution other than those that are directly participating in unlocking all the legal requirements. We would like to appeal to media to exercise patience and caution. We are so up the road in the processes that not long from now we will be giving so much information that the media may not have enough pages for. 

Let the esprit de corps prevail for all to work in harmony in generating socio-economic energies that will transform Emgwenya in ways never fathomed before.