Johannesburg - The ANC in Gauteng has slammed political analyst Prince Mashele and ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba for allegedly attempting to conceal one of the country’s biggest literary frauds.
Yesterday, the party reacted strongly to what it described as a “deception of self-aggrandising” literary fraud following the news of the Mashaba book, The Outsider, penned by Mashele at a cost of R12.5 million allegedly from Mashaba.
“The ANC in Gauteng has learnt with great concern that the leader of ActionSA, Herman Mashaba, has pulled off one of the greatest acts of deception in literary history. The book purported to be an unauthorised biography when, in fact, Mashaba not only paid Mashele a mind-boggling R12.5m towards its research but was also in the process of providing information to Mashele.
“This secret agreement by Mashaba and Mashele is not only unethical but also raises some very serious legal questions,” ANC Gauteng spokesperson Lesego Makhubele said yesterday.
This comes after a weekend which saw Mashaba and Mashele heavily criticised for the failure to disclose their working relationship in the penning of Mashaba’s biography, The Outsider: The unauthorised biography of Herman Mashaba.
In what many have described as one of the country’s biggest literary scandals in recent times, Mashele has come under fire after it emerged that Mashaba helped fund the book, which was advertised as an unauthorised biography.
On Monday, Jonathan Ball Publishers announced that it had pulled the book off the shelves due to “material non-disclosure and breach of trust” after it was revealed that Mashaba had funded the publishing of the book at a cost of R12.5m.
In a statement, the publisher said it had been unaware of a funding agreement between Mashaba and Mashele when it signed the book deal with the author last year.
“We view this as a material non-disclosure on the part of the author and as a breach of trust,” the publisher said in a statement.
Mashele, who refused to commit to the figure he was paid by Mashaba in the build-up to the book, told Radio 702 yesterday that it was not unusual in the publishing world to advance monies for “research”, adding that he was the one who approached Mashaba before the launch of the party with a proposal to write a book about him.
He added that his legal agreement with Mashaba prevented him from revealing intimate details about the nature of the funding provided by the businessman-turned-politician.
“This R12.5m that is flying about is not even the biggest of projects that I have managed in terms of research. When I wrote the book on Mashaba, I was never invited to write the book; I went to him. I did not call this book an unauthorised biography; that was the publishers. My preferred title was Herman Mashaba: The Outsider,” he said.
In a statement on Monday, ActionSA chairperson Michael Beaumont, in an attempt to clarify the matter, said the biography authored by Mashele about Mashaba’s life and political experience was not commissioned by the party.
Beaumont added that although Mashaba financed the making of the book, financing a project “does not provide editorial control of content”.
“Mashaba had no relationship with the publishers, Jonathan Ball Publishers, and this relationship was dealt with by Mashele as was determined in the contract in March 2019,” said the party.
“A contract was signed in March 2019 that provided explicit editorial control of content to the author, Mashele. Mashaba was to provide access for interviews and was available with manuscripts from time to time to comment on factual accuracy.
“A plan to finance the book was presented by Mashele to Mashaba in October 2018, but when it became clear that raising the funds would be challenging, Mashaba agreed to provide the initial finance of R12.5m in his personal capacity,” said ActionSA.
Speaking to the SABC, Mashele said he had no qualms about the amount he charged for the book, saying he has the right to charge any amount.
“With regards to the money, by the way, I have a right to charge any amount of money for the work I do, just like you have the right to charge any amount of money for the work you do for the SABC,” he said.
The Star