ActionSA has today lodged a formal complaint with the Public Protector’s office, requesting an official investigation into Resolve Communications and its dealings with GNU ministers and any corresponding decisions or actions taken by those ministers.
Today’s complaint follows explosive allegations that the PR firm, owned by former DA leader Tony Leon, had brokered meetings between its clients and several GNU ministers. This includes Elon Musk’s Starlink, which is alleged to have met with Communications Minister Solly Malatsi and, later, the former DA leader pressuring about the slow pace of response. Allegations also include that Resolve Communications linked-companies placed pressure on ministers, as has now been publicly confirmed by the former DA Minister of Agriculture and former DA Minister of Forestry , Fisheries and Environment.
From the outset, both Leon and the newly minted DA leader, Geordin Hill-Lewis, have brushed these claims aside, labelling the alleged activities as “lobbying”. They sing from the same hymn sheet because it is Tony Leon’s political influence in the DA that is being brought to bear particularly on DA government representatives.
What they claim to be lobbying appears to be something more sinister and reminds South Africans of a time not that long ago where powerful individuals captured leaders in political parties in a bid to gain access to the state that they would not otherwise enjoy.
This would not have marked Resolve Communications’ first foray into backroom deals. As captured in The Accidental Mayor, Leon tried to facilitate a R300 million contract for one of its clients during a meeting with then Johannesburg mayor, Herman Mashaba. Leon was shown the door and Mashaba lodged a complaint with the party only to find Leon chairing the review panel of Mashaba’s government that paved the way to Mashaba’s ousting.
ActionSA’s investigation into this matter will not stop with today’s complaint. Questions will be submitted to all DA ministers and Deputy Ministers on their engagements with Resolve Communications, and we will ask for the Minister of Communications as well as Resolve Communications to appear before the appropriate parliamentary committee to answer questions on their actions.
Acts of impropriety are not the speciality of one party, even if one party has had the lion’s share of access to government in our 32-year-old democracy. The GNU has seen more political parties gain access to national government and it seems that the opposition will need to be effective in monitoring potential abuses of power by those invisible forces that ride on the coattails of others to access the levers of power in our country.
ActionSA will continue to apply pressure in reaching the truth of the matter. Where wrongdoing is found, consequences will follow.
ActionSA JHB Success: Won 16% of the vote in Johannesburg in 2021.
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Fun South African Fact: Vilakazi Street in Soweto has been home to two Nobel Peace Prize winners. A tour through Soweto will always stop at Vilakazi Street to reveal a number of heritage sites of great importance to democratic South Africa. Both Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu lived here at some point in their lives. In 1984, Archbishop Desmond Tutu received the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition for his non-violent fight against the apartheid regime. Nine years later in 1993, Nelson Mandela shared the Nobel Peace Prize with then-president F.W. de Klerk as an award for their role in bringing about the peaceful end of apartheid. Nelson Mandela then went on to become South Africa’s first democratically elected president in 1994.
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Fun South African Fact: South Africa has three capital cities