Sizwe Dlamini
ON MONDAY night, Dr Wallace Mqoqi, the chairperson of AYO Technology Solutions, passed on as a result of a heart attack.
In a statement, AYO said: “It is with great sadness and no small amount of shock that AYO confirms the news that its former Chairman, Advocate Wallace Mgoqi, has passed on.
“The shocking news was received on Monday night, 3 April, and comes not long after the recent settlement between the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) and AYO, which saw a long-running battle settled amicably.
“Mgoqi, as the chairman of AYO, saw his company subjected to vitriolic and relentless attacks since the settlement with the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) was announced two weeks ago.”
Dr Iqbal Survé, chairman of the Sekunjalo Group, said: “Wallace’s passing is a devastating blow for the entire Sekunjalo family. His wisdom, his presence and his unashamed commitment to this Group will be sorely missed. He has walked the journey with Sekunjalo for over two decades, and has left us with many lessons in leadership and resilience, for which we will always be immensely grateful. South Africa is all the poorer for his loss.”
Mgoqi, in a recent television interview with SABC, was at pains to point out that it is the media that is running a smear campaign against AYO, the listed company he chaired. Unfortunately, the stress of the attacks from these journalists finally took its toll, and South Africa lost a famous son of the soil.
He was one of the few Africans to graduate from UCT in apartheid years as an advocate, had three international honorary doctorates, and was an acting Judge and Land Claims Commissioner.
None of this was respected by journalists from other media, who “murdered” him with their vitriol and fake news about AYO. Mgoqi was disgusted that they continued to lie about the settlement between the PIC and AYO and distorted it to suit their objectives to smear AYO.
These media houses refused to accept that AYO and the PIC had settled their differences amicably. Mgoqi was the ultimate reconciler and mediator. He had always maintained that AYO did nothing wrong and that the case against AYO was driven by the media.
AYO is a victim of a smear campaign by the media. In the interview with SABC, Mgoqi was at pains to emphasise the benefit of a settlement, despite an attempt by the journalists to suggest that AYO was bankrupt if they had to pay the PIC. Mgoqi repeatedly told the journalists that it was fake news and that AYO was financially very sound.
Well, fake news on AYO is what has been relentlessly published by competing media, and they are bitter about the settlement. They desperately wanted to believe that AYO did something wrong and would be found guilty by the courts.
When all the evidence suggested that the AYO investment was not only lawful but a good investment, they then decided to be both jury and executioner. As the executioner, they intended to murder AYO.
They had murdered AYO long ago, destroying the company in the media, then claiming, hypocritically, that they were defending the interests of pensioners. They have been venomous. There was no such venom for the likes of Steinhoff, EOH Tongaat, McKinsey or Bain. Of course, these are all white companies which committed fraud, unlike AYO, which has done nothing wrong, as anyone who attended the court hearings would have seen.
Apartheid conditioned the oppressors to destroy black people and institutions and to treat them as “sub-human” to be slaughtered.
The media arm of the apartheid government was News24. PW Botha’s Cabinet meetings were attended by their journalists and editors. They were responsible for the deaths of thousands of black South Africans. Their role was to legitimise apartheid and destroy the black man, especially the African.
South Africans, especially black South Africans, thought that after 1994, they would move on and reconciliation would be good.
However, the apartheid-era journalists present did not account for their role during apartheid. Unfortunately, there was no Truth and Reconciliation Commission for the media to account for their role. The result is that today, their progeny now runs amok against anyone who is black.
Mgoqi valiantly fought these apartheid era conditioned journalists and their progeny, who treated black business leaders in a discriminatory manner. After all, they have never written so many negative articles about any white businessman or organisation. They reserve their venom and slander for AYO and Sekunjalo.
South Africa will never be free when we have such journalists who dance to their funders’ tune to destroy black businesses and successful black individuals.
They have relentlessly attacked AYO and its investor, Sekunjalo, hoping to destroy the settlement agreement between the PIC and AYO. They are complicit in the murder of AYO and so many others as during the apartheid years.
Young black South Africans will one day wake up to realise that apartheid never died. It went into hibernation to re-emerge in all its racist glory in these media houses. These media houses were groomed in the psychosocial warfare techniques of the apartheid security apparatus. They have good teachers from the apartheid era.
Mgoqi’s spirit of defiance and no surrender will inspire many Africans to fight them in the trenches as revolutionaries did during the struggle. May his soul rest in peace.
#DownWithApartheidMedia