Johannesburg - A group of investigative
journalists whose slogan is "digging dung, fertilising
democracy" is holding President Jacob Zuma to
account over his widely criticised links to a family of wealthy
businessmen.
AmaBhungane, which means dung beetles in the Zulu language,
was founded by three veteran reporters to expose wrongdoing in
South Africa.
Together with online news site the Daily Maverick,
amaBhungane in June released leaked emails and documents that
they said showed allegedly improper dealings in government
contracts and influence peddling by the Guptas, a family with
close ties to Zuma.
Zuma and the Gupta family, which has said the emails were
fake, have denied wrongdoing.
Co-founder Stefaans Brummer said amaBhungane, which was
founded in 2010, had spent several years probing Zuma's family
business dealings, and had verified the authenticity of the
leaked documents.
"Our very first stories as amaBhungane was a series called
'Zuma Inc' and we looked at the Zuma family and how its business
fortunes had grown since Zuma took the office of president,"
Brummer said.
He said the Gupta name popped up in several of amaBhungane's
inquiries into Zuma's family business links and the organisation
was well placed to process the trove of information in more than
100 000 emails and documents.
"You fight hard for every piece of information and when
something like this happens it's like Christmas, you suddenly
have a lot of information," said Brummer.
Brummer said amaBhungane, which mostly uses external hard
drives to store documents for safety reasons, had sent a copy of
the leaked Gupta emails to the Organized Crime and Corruption
Reporting Project - a global consortium of investigative
journalism centres.
Reuters has not independently been able to verify the
allegations in the so-called "GuptaLeaks" emails, sent between
the Gupta brothers and their associates.
Zuma in focus
The allegations, which came after a Public Protector report into claims of influence peddling, opened Zuma
up to renewed scrutiny and deepened divisions within the African National Congress.
Zuma survived an attempt in parliament to force him from
office on August 8, but he was left politically wounded after some
ANC members voted with the opposition.
"It's quite amazing that people in South Africa have woken
up to 'state capture' now in 2017 when amaBhungane have been
exposing this for a decade," said Glenda Daniels, a senior media
studies lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand.
"Perhaps the nature of their exposes were rather intense and
detailed for people to follow. Maybe they have now let some air
into their writing and everyone is getting it."
As a non-profit company, amaBhungane's R8 million annual budget is funded by grants from charitable
foundations and public donations. It does not sell adverts or
accept funds from the government or from companies.
Sam Sole, another amaBhungane co-founder, said his desire to
expose society's injustices drove him into journalism.
Both Sole and Brummer started their journalism careers
before the end of apartheid in 1994.
"During my subsequent conscription into the defence force I
came face to face with the sharp, brutish reality of apartheid -
and that was the impetus for my first piece of journalism," said
Sole. "Journalism, for me, was a way to fight against
injustice."
The third amaBhungane co-founder, Adriaan Basson, is now
editor of News24.
Sole and Brummer have won numerous journalism awards,
including for their reporting on a 30 billion rand ($2.3
billion) deal to buy military equipment in the late 1990s that
was plagued by allegations of fraud and corruption.
Crime, politics and business
Zuma was linked to the deal through his former financial
adviser, Shabir Shaik, who was jailed for corruption. The president said last
year that an investigation into the deal found no evidence of
wrongdoing, but critics denounced the findings as a cover-up.
All charges against Zuma were dropped in 2009, but a court
last year ordered a review of the decision. Zuma is appealing
the ruling.
"The arms deal scandal lasted much longer and was much
slower burning, which gave us time to develop some of the skills
we use now," Sole said.
For amaBhungane, the aim was to probe the link between
politics and money.
"We set ourselves a target of trying to find that sweet spot
of where organised crime, politics and business intersect,"
Brummer said.
"Politics has its good side but it has its bad side,
business has its good side and its bad side, organised crime is
all bad, but there is always that intersection where the three
come together and that's where you get the worst wrongdoing."
But amaBhungane has been accused by Black
First Land First and some on social media of being run by
'racist white men' and not doing enough stories on 'white
monopoly capital', a phrase used to describe the fact that the
white minority still control much of the economy.
Brummer said the criticism has not deterred amaBhungane.
"We are not going to roll over and die. Investigative
journalism is what we do and what we like to do," he said.