SIYABONGA SITHOLE
Johannesburg - Independent Power Producer DNG Energy is threatening online publication Daily Maverick with court action should the publication print any report without the company’s response.
The Daily Maverick has once again landed itself in hot water, this after a leaked copy of a loaded legal document from DNG Energy’s lawyers acting for chief executive Aldworth Mbalati.
In recent months DNG Energy took the Department of Minerals and Energy, Minister Gwede Mantashe and Director-General Thabo Moloi to court after Moloi allegedly solicited a bribe from Mbalati in order for DNG to win the R300 billion tender to produce electricity.
Moloi did not deny inviting Mbalati to Kream restaurant in Pretoria.
According to Mbalati, his refusal to pay the bribe solicited by Moloi and other “big guns” linked to Mantashe, the tender was won by Turkish company Karpowership.
Although the other personalities had denied being at the meeting, Mbalati halted the tender by presenting to the court video evidence obtained by a private investigator of Moloi and two other people entering the booth at the restaurant.
The firebrand businessman has now turned his attention to the Daily Maverick.
Mbalati has enlisted the services of Larry Marks Attorneys to ensure that journalist Onke Ngcuka allows the energy company time to respond.
It is not not the first time that the the Daily Maverick has been involved in “Energy controversy”. The paper last week retracted and removed a deceiving article, and apologised to Symbion Power LLC and its chief executive Paul Hinks, after publishing a false story claiming the family of Durban businessman Vivian Reddy were part of a consortium that lost a case against Eskom.
In a letter published on Sunday by the Daily Maverick, the publication said its previous article dated and published on May 8, claiming that Reddy’s son had a relationship with Symbion and that they were being sued in a US court, was wholly incorrect and that the Daily Maverick apologises for the errors.
“The article incorrectly stated that Symbion was being ‘sued’ in a US court. Daily Maverick wishes to clarify that those proceedings are a discovery application by a former business partner in the company’s Madagascar power plant project, Zouzar Bouka, with whom Symbion has a dispute. It is, in fact, Symbion that has ‘sued’ Bouka in a New York arbitration.
“In addition, we retract the statements and have determined that it was wholly incorrect to state that Symbion was once associated with the family of Durban businessman Vivian Reddy and was part of a consortium that recently lost a case against Eskom. It was not, and Symbion was not associated with Reddy,” read the statement.
DNG Energy says should the publication decide to go ahead and publish the story in question, it shall be forced to seek interdictory relief or damages against the publication as well as the journalist severally and jointly.
"If you decide to publish a story before taking the time to interview our client and obtain its version bearing in mind, the invitation referred to herein, or where you choose to publish an article without evidence to support any allegations made or to selectively quote aggrieved persons who have their own agenda, then our client, who we repeat is still willing to provide you with a formal interview of the details referred to above, may well be forced through your conduct to institute substantive damages claim against you for damages in your personal capacities and against The Daily Maverick and its office bearers, "the lawyers warned.
The Star