Durban - Business tycoon Vivian Reddy has rubbished claims that his family was associated with a US firm, Symbion.
Reddy said the reports published in the media were part of a smear campaign against him and he was not “unsettled” by the false claims.
On Sunday, the Daily Maverick published an article titled “US firm Symbion, once associated with Durban’s Vivian Reddy family, sued in New York court”.
In the article, it is alleged that the company was dragged to the Southern District Court of New York for, among other things, participating in a “multimillion-dollar theft from the Mandroseza Power Plant, a project designed to bring reliable electricity to Madagascar.”
Daily Maverick claimed Reddy’s son Shantan, had resigned as Symbion director. In a statement, Reddy rubbished the claims and said that his son was never a director in the company.
“The claimed association of my family with Symbion is an outright falsehood and disinformation engineered to bring the Reddy family’s name into disrepute.
“The Reddy family has never been associated with Symbion. We last heard about the company over 10-years back, when they did business with one of the entities we had long exited from. There has never been any business dealing with Symbion, its directors, employees, and associates.
“None of Mr Reddy’s entities, or Mr Reddy himself, has ever owned or been a subsidiary of Symbion. Mr Reddy’s son, Shantan, has never been a director, employee, or associate of Symbion; therefore, the claims that he resigned as a director are patently false.”
Reddy said the claim of a relationship between his company Edison and Symbion by Daily Maverick was mischievous and defamatory.
“The Daily Maverick report is a carefully crafted conflation propaganda smear that sought to weave the Reddy name into an article about a company they have absolutely no relationship with.”
He accused the publication of regurgitating old stories of the “Zuma link”, and the baseless claims from the discredited propaganda book about Ace Magashule, and for misrepresenting the forensic investigation findings on a City Power contract done over 10 years ago, which found no wrongdoing by Edison Power, a firm Reddy was involved in.
“Two independent forensic investigations were done by a law firm appointed by City Power, the Auditor General’s investigation, and an international audit company. Their findings were widely published.
“The inclusion of Mr Reddy’s name in the article using conflation propaganda was aimed at nothing but creating a negative association with his name. It was meant to manipulate the public into associating him with wrongdoing.
“The lame attempt to smear Mr Reddy’s name is rejected with the contempt it deserves. Publishing disinformation, propaganda, and fake news against Mr Reddy have become a growing trend in some agenda-driven mainstream media,” read the statement.
The family also accused the publication of a recent attempt to smear Reddy’s wife, Sorisha Naidoo, and said the Daily Maverick was taken to the Press Ombudsman, where the paper lost the case.
“There was no reason to falsely claim an association between Symbion and Reddy, except mischief, propaganda, and smear. Fake news, a disinformation campaign, propaganda, and shoddy journalism against Reddy will be dealt with swiftly via the courts and other processes.
“These baseless allegations and cheap smear will not unsettle Reddy. He remains focused on doing philanthropic work to help communities in need and providing a strategic vision for his businesses that are run ethically and competently delivering world-class services to their clients,” read the statement.
Approached for comment, editor of the Daily Maverick Branko Brkic said that he would stick by his story.
Daily News