SOUTH AFRICA'S PRESS PROTECTION RACKET

Dear Newspaper Readers,

Pippa Green Press Ombudsman

          Did you know that large sections of our press are running their own protection racket unhindered by the Press Ombudsman or anybody else? And a Judge, who is currently heading a media ethics inquiry, is not prepared to consider this decay in our newspaper morality.

          The inquiry has been established by the South African National Editor’s Forum (SANEF) and the Judge’s treatment of my submission does nothing to support SANEF’s claim that it is there to “fight for the highest standards of ethics in the media.”

          The papers involved are the Daily Sun and the free People’s Post community weeklies in the Media24 stable as well as Caxton's The Citizen daily.

          Even Professor George Claassen Media24’s own Ombudsman had nothing good to say about the Herbalist advertisements that appear in his Group’s papers. "I agree with you, many of these ads are totally misleading and even fraudulent,” he said.

          Steven Motale the Editor of The Citizen at the time I wrote my story also agreed that the ads were not believable.

          They have people claiming to be doctors, professors and the like who can win you the lotto, enlarge your penis and do all kinds of other amazing things, almost over night. Some even offer a 100% guarantee. 
          Of course its illegal to call yourself a doctor when you are not one, but the papers don't worry about that. All they are interested in is making money. In the 17 May 2019 edition of the Sun there were two pages of these ads with 10 advertisers claiming to be doctors.

          As I knew the Press Ombudsman did not deal with advertising, another aspect of my campaign to stop these papers lying daily occurred to me. This was the editorial side of these, something this Ombudsman is definitely mandated to deal with, as she is there to rule on complaints against print and on-line publications. So I contacted Pippa Green, who became the new Ombudsman a couple of months ago.

This is typical
of the Herbalist
ads that appear
in the Daily Sun

          “I realise that your office does not deal with advertising,” I began. “But this is about the immoral way certain newspapers give crooks, who advertise in their papers, editorial immunity from having their activities exposed in their editorial sides.

          “At the same time a host of other dubious characters, who don’t advertise, get their comeuppance in the same papers.”

          My complaint, she told me, first had to go to the Public Advocate Joe Latakgomo. A former newspaper editor he was given this job last year to champion the complaints of members of the public, because one of the issues raised at a press commission was that the public’s voice was not being heard.

          The irony was that way back in 2011, when I was campaigning to get the Sunday Times to stop carrying get-rich-quick ads that promised unrealistic returns on investments, he was the internal Ombudsman for the Avusa Group, the owners of that paper. I upset him by suggesting that he was a lame duck ombudsman.

          An article he wrote in the paper, prompted I believe by my complaints, was headed Beware of dubious advertising claims. It looked as though the paper was finally going to stop aiding crooks.

          “These come-ons,” Joe told readers, “eroded the public's trust in newspapers and false advertising, or advertising that makes claims that are patently exaggerated, impact on consumer confidence.”

          He then gave this assurance, “We will continue as journalists to expose those who cheat and lie to our readers.” Nothing happened and it took several more years of my campaigning before the paper stopped taking this kind of ad. I’m sure it would never concede that my blog had anything to do with this change of policy. It did however have one lapse last year.

          Joe left the Group not long afterwards and as far as I know it has not had an internal Ombudsman since. It has changed hands several times in the last few years.

          I told Pippa that I did not think Joe was the right person to deal with my complaint in view of my dealings with him when he was with Avusa and she replied: “I cannot breach the Complaints Procedure by leapfrogging the Public Advocate in the first instance.”

          Guest what: she evidently did exactly that because I never heard from Joe and she effectively kicked my gripe into touch.

          She conveniently ignored what I wrote about the editorial side of these papers, even though this is the part of them that is the reason for her existence. “We do not at the moment have the jurisdiction to deal with advertising,” she told me.

Judge Satchwell

          Retired High Court Judge Kathleen Satchwell, who is heading the SANEF Inquiry with two retired journalists, took much the same view of what I had put to Pippa. She too completely ignored the editorial aspect.

          In my email to her I stated: “The gist of my submission is the immoral way certain South African newspapers have for years been aiding and abetting crooks to rip off those, who can usually least afford it, by carrying their advertisements that are clearly fraudulent. This media cancer has been compounded by the papers giving the shysters editorial immunity from having their activities exposed in their editorial sides.”

          She replied saying: “We consider that your concerns as to ‘fraudulent’ advertising falls beyond our remit. We have no powers to investigate criminal behaviour, which the connotation of ‘fraud’ certainly encompasses.”

          Her last statement was absurd as nowhere in my 13 page submission did I so much as suggest that they should investigate the fraudulent advertisements. It’s patently obvious that this is not something the Inquiry could be expected to do.

          I told her that in her reply to me Pippa Green wrote that they had another complaint from a man who lost a lot of money by responding to an ad in a community paper for a Profit. “We wrote to the editor of that paper,” Pippa continued, “and she has undertaken to help the police investigation and to speak to their advertising department about the type of advertising they accept.”          

          So once again somebody was ripped off with the help of the dubious side of the South Africa press, I stated in my submission to Judge Satchwell.

          I pointed out that Pippa Green did concede, however that: “We agree that many advertisements are problematic and undermine the credibility of newspapers. But we only have the tools of persuasion at the moment rather than instruction because we do not have jurisdiction over ads per se.”  

          She added that the Press Council’s Executive Director Latiefa Mobara had met with the new head of the Advertising Regulatory Board CEO Gail Schimmel, “who is also aware of the problem of misleading ads.

          “Will continue working with her and speak to editors to see what we can solve, but in the meantime, the ARB is the body to deal with such complaints.”

          The ARB replaced the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) that was so bad it was liquidated. When I complained to the ASA about misleading newspaper ads I got the complete run around. I was told they did not have the power to tell papers to stop carrying these, as they could only deal with the individual advertisers. They wanted me to submit a separate complaint for each ad that I believed was not kosher.  And I don’t expect the ARB to be any different.

          At one stage the ASA stated it had ruled against Herbalist advertisements "on numerous occasions, and it is hoped that the appropriate authorities will address this issue as it is no doubt causing harm to the credibility of legitimate healers and practitioners and this industry at large." As usual nothing happened.

Former Sunday Times
Consumer columnist

          These advertising authorities, like the Press Council (the Ombudsman is part of this) were established and financed by the industries they serve, so their impartiality is very questionable when it comes to dealing with complaints. What’s more they only have a tenuous control over those advertising agencies and media groups that are their members. They are essentially there to protect their masters, who pay for them and to give the illusion that they are looking after the interests of the public.         

          I ended my submission with: “It’s not surprising that newspapers go on printing the kind of lies I have referred to because the Press Council has little or no power to effectively police the press in South Africa. As the Independent Media (It owns papers like the Cape Times, The Star in Johannesburg and various others) showed, if a newspaper group doesn’t like Press Council decisions that go against it, all it has to do is resign as a member. It then has a free rein to go on doing whatever it likes or in this case appoint its own internal ombudsman.

You can’t get more absurd than having a Press Ombudsman, who concedes that the kind of advertisements I have referred to “undermines the credibility of newspapers,” but, conveniently,  she hasn’t been given the power to do anything about them.

        The terms of reference for the Inquiry that the Judge is heading state that its purpose “Shall include: Investigation of ethical breaches on the part of the media industry in South Africa and those obstacles to accountable and credible media practice.”

Well if ever there was an obstacle to “credible media practice” it was the Judge’s decision to refuse to consider my submission.

Regards

Jon, the self appointed Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman.
See also (sunday times at it again; lies lies and more lies & 
sunday times will never expose this)

P.S. I wasn’t optimistic that my submission to the SANEF Inquiry would get beyond first base. But if you don’t try you never know. SANEF represents editors and senior newspapers journalists and other people in the media. So I could hardly expect my views to be taken seriously because, if they were, the papers concerned might have to do without a good slice of their income. In my one man, 10 year long campaign to stop papers from continuing to print what are obviously money making lies I sent emails to SANEF’s director at the time Mathatu Tsedu, as well as the current director Kate Skinner to try to get them to do something about this. I didn’t even get a reply. 
P.P.S. The two journalists with the Judge on the panel are described as being 'retired from the industry.' They are Nikiwe Bikitsha and Rich Mkhondo. In an email to Nikiwe I told her I presumed this was done to emphasise their independence. But if Google is up to date she is the founder and CEO of Amargi Media and Rich also has his own public relations company. From what I know about public relations firms, keeping in with the press is very much part of what they do when they want to get maximum exposure for their clients. So people who are still in this business can never be described as being 'independent,' if they form part of a panel that is investigating newspaper and journalistic ethics, even if they were once journalists of some kind and have since moved on into the public relations world. Some might argue that even journalists, who are retired  and are in no business at all, can't be described as 'independent' when heading an inquiry of this kind. I sent this to her on 21 July  and on 24 July I emailed her again saying that if I did not hear from her by the week-end (27 July) I would assume that everything in this email was was correct. I heard nothing from her, although she was 
the person who acknowledged the receipt of my submission.

TEAM SPORTS: WHY DOES LITTLE NEW ZEALAND HAVE SUCH A WINNING FORMULA WHILE MUCH BIGGER SOUTH AFRICA LOOSES

Dear Sports Lovers,

Kane Williamson

          New Zealand is a tiny country with a population of a mere 5-million, yet it shows up South Africa’s 58-million badly when it comes to producing team sport winners.

          After reaching the final of the Cricket World Cup for the second successive time earlier this month its Silver Ferns have just won the Netball World Cup for the sixth time having been runners up on 8 previous occasions.

South Africa came fourth. It had some consolation when wing defender Karla Pretorius was named Player of the Tournament. The team’s best performance was second way back in 1995.

In cricket South Africa has never even reached the final of the World Cup in this sport. At this year’s event its Proteas faded so badly that they were lucky not to come last. Meanwhile the Black Caps added to their sterling performance when their captain Kane Williamson, who scored more than 30% of his team’s runs with 578, was named Man of the Tournament.

Another Kiwi batsman Martin Crowe got this accolade in 1992. The best that South Africa could do was when Lance Klusener picked up the trophy in 1999 for his top notch all round 281 runs and 17 wickets.

Lance Klusener

         In rugby South Africa was getting the best of the All Blacks at the World Cup up to 2007 with a win in that year as well as in 1995 when they narrowly beat New Zealand at Ellis Park. At that stage the All Blacks had only won once in 1987 when the tournament started. The Springboks were excluded from that because of apartheid.

More recently the Springboks haven’t featured at all at the centre of the podium with New Zealand taking the title in 2011 and 2015. In 2015 the All Blacks became the first team to defend their title and the first team to win it twice. The Springboks snatched a miserable third place.

It’s hardly surprising then, that the All Blacks are odds on favourites to win again later this year.

In 2011 the Boks, the defending champions, were eliminated in the quarter finals by Australia, another country with a very much smaller population than ours at 24 million. Their rugby not only has to compete for players with the country’s most popular sport Australian Rules football (Footy) as well as Rugby League and soccer.

South Africa’s men have had some good results in sevens rugby but again our team has been very much overshadowed by the All Blacks. The All Blacks kicked off the World Rugby Sevens Series in 1999 by leading the series for six successive years. So far they have accumulated 12 wins to South Africa’s three. 

New Zealand has won the women’s version, which began in 2012, five times out of seven, with Australia taking the title on the other two occasions. South Africa doesn’t seem to feature in this at all.

Evidently with its small population New Zealand can’t be expected to win everything so thankfully it has given soccer a miss.

In South Africa football is the most popular sport, but after the national team Bafana Bafana won the African Cup of Nations at home 23 years ago it has had one poor showing after another.

Karla Pretorius the World's
best netball player

It set what is possibly the worst record in this sport when it became the first host nation in FIFA World Cup history to exit in the group stage. It was when the tournament was held in South Africa in 2010. This was the first time it had been staged on the African continent.

Things got so bad that in 2014 the then Minister of Sport Fikile Mbalula described the team as a “bunch of losers” after it could not even make it to the group stage in the African Cup.

So it seems that South African coaches in many of our sports should be sent to New Zealand to learn how to produce winners. But we first have to get rid of our ridiculous quota system that is hampering our rugby and cricket sides in particular, and forcing white stars to continue their careers elsewhere in the world. There can’t be another country that insists on picking players based more on their colour than their ability.

This takes the cake

      This is being done in South Africa by government decree to ensure that blacks, disadvantaged under the previous whites only apartheid government, get places in the teams. The tragedy is that when they get picked they can’t be sure if it is because they are good enough or because they happen to be the right colour.

It’s hard to think of a better way of hobbling a nation’s sports performances.

Regards,

Jon, an avid sports watcher who, like our previous Minister of Sport, is getting sick of rooting for losers.

STOOD UP BY SUNE` GRIESSEL THE PUBLIC PROTECTOR'S WESTERN CAPE REPRESENTATIVE

Dear Readers,

          Calls for the Public Protector Busiswe Mkhwebane to be fired are getting louder and louder after a second court hearing found against one of her investigations.

          In his column in the Sunday Times headed “Mkhwebane is a public menace, not a public protector, and she must go" Barney Mthombothi wrote that Ramamphosa must make sure that parliament takes the necessary steps to remove her. A subsequent editorial in the same paper was headed: “This rogue investigator is what the public most need to be protected from.”

          If she must go so should Sune` Griessel who is in charge of the Western Cape Protector’s office in Cape Town, together with some of her useless staff.

          As far back as June 2017 I received an acknowledgement that my complaint to the Public Protector office in Pretoria had been received. I was trying to initiate an investigation into the way the Cape Town City Council had been wasting millions.

          For nearly four years I had personally documented, with my own pictures and posts on my blog, the way Council had been spending huge amounts on ineffective ways to try and keep the sand dunes in place above a municipal rubbish dump, next to the kite surfing beach at Witsands not far from Cape Point. The dump was closed more than 30 years ago, but there is still tons of plastic and other non-biodegradable material under the sand. The Council has been spending all this money to try and prevent this from getting washed into the sea.

          What I discover was that the Council’s net fences erected to ensure that the remains of the rubbish was always covered were getting blown away by the strong winds that are endemic to the area. Sometimes they were flattened as fast as they were put up. From time to time costly earth moving equipment was brought in to shift dunes around only to have the sand blown back to its original position.

This is how the ratepayer's money is being wasted

          At the end of last year Greg Oelofse, Cape Town’s Head of Environmental Policy told me that this maintenance work on the dunes would have to continue ad infinitum. What they had been doing had been successful because since 2006 none of the buried rubbish had been washed into the sea.

          What he neglected to mention was that in the last few years we have not had enough rain to wash anything into the sea.

          He was not in favour of vegetating the area with alien Port Jackson willow because in the unlikely event that they would be given permission to do this by the appropriate government department they would still have to spend money on an ongoing basis to make sure it did not spread to other areas.

          Meanwhile on the other side of the mountains above Witsands the lower slopes are covered in a forest of Port Jackson. They have been like this for more than 10 years and nobody has done anything about it.

          So what would be better – go on spending millions to try and keep the constant shifting sand in place at Witsands or plant Port Jackson? This would be self perpetuating and cost not a cent extra once planted. It already grows naturally in patches around the 19ha rubbish dump site and what’s more important is that it does not need any watering to get it going.

          My complaint to the Public Protector contained details from six of my posts about what has been going on at the dump site as well as links to the posts. Many of these included the replies I got from the councillors concerned as well City officials.

           But this was not good enough to even get the ace sleuths at the Public Protector’s Cape Town office started. A year after my complaint was received they were still trying to work out whether the “law allows your complaint to be investigated.”

           After I was told that my complaint had been shelved because I had not supplied enough information I came across a quote from the Public Protector herself that made nonsense of what the Cape Town office had been telling me. She said that even if her office is not provided with the evidence to support an allegation this did not stop it from being investigated.

          When I pointed this out to Griessel she phoned me and asked me to come to her office in the centre of Cape Town. I told her that I was not prepared to do this as it was quite a trek from where I live near Kommetjie. So she asked for my exact address as she said she had been visiting the township of Masiphumelele (Masi), which is in the same area, almost every week. When I gave it to her she undertook to come and see me at my home and made an appointment for the following week. About an hour before she was due to arrive somebody from her office phoned to say she would not be able to make it because the authorisation for the trip had not yet come through.

          Hers is such a humpty dumpty department that the office manager apparently needs an authorisation to travel from the centre of Cape Town to a place in the Southern suburbs. I told the caller to tell Griessel to tell me in an email what she wants me to give her. I never heard from her again.

Most of these claims didn't feature in my experience

          My response was to send her an email in which I told her that as head of the Western Cape office she sets an appalling example. “You told me among other things that your officer doesn’t deal with blogs. So you are evidently behind the times in that area of technology as well. Who does one complaint to about rotten service from your office?”

          While the City Council continues to blow money on a grand scale at an old rubbish dump site 40 000 Blacks live in Masi not far away, in what the Public Protector herself described as: “The most disgusting conditions I have seen in my life,” after she visited the township a couple of years ago.

          Regards,

          Jon

P.S. Thanks Sune`Griessel and your staff for doing your bit to tarnish the already besmirched name of the Public Protector.

See also:public protector's crazy requirements

SICKENING: the warped view of humanity displayed by Notre Dame's generosity scramble by the very rich

Dear Readers,

          People experiencing all kinds of unspeakable horrors in natural disasters don’t get anything like the same reaction from the billionaires, who fell over one another trying to be the biggest giver after the Notre Dame fire.

          When did you last see all the international television news channels reporting on a giving race that went up, not by millions of dollars at a time, but by hundreds of millions? In a few hours it had topped $900 million and climbing.

          It shot up faster than the fire at the Cathedral.

          All this was to restore an 800 year old building that the French Ministry of Culture is responsible for maintaining. It’s such a dodo that the French Government can’t afford to pay for its upkeep so there’s a charity trying to make up the shortfall.

Nobody was injured in the fire; nobody was made homeless; no children were orphaned; millions of poverty stricken people didn’t find the entire area where they live well above head high in water that remained there for weeks; it didn’t cause widespread famine; nobody had their home and all they possess burnt to a cinder; so how could this philanthropic frenzy possibly be justify? 

Great Minds think alike

Was this just a chance for these business leaders to do what they know best – flaunt their wealth and get one up on their monied rivals? “Ha!, Ha! I’m richer than you,” they could have been saying like little kids, if not publicly then under their breath.

The embers were probably still warm when Francois-Henri Pinault, who is married to actress Salma Hayek, announced that his family would donate 100-million euros ($112 –million). He is the CEO of Kering the luxury goods firm that owns brands like Gucci and is estimated to be personally worth $17-billion.

One of the problems of leading a race is that you are always likely to be overtaken from behind before you realise it, and I’m sure no billionaire likes to be beaten, but that’s exactly what happened.

Not to be outdone his rival in the fashion industry Bernard Arnault, the world’s third richest man and head of LVMH pledged to double Pinault’s miserable amount. This was hardly surprising as he himself is said to be worth $94-billion.  LVMH has brands like Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior

Then the BettercourtMeyers family that controls L’Oreal matched Arnault’s pledge.

'That shows real enterprise which I admire. They are obviously
more than capable of looking after themselves.'

          The French government allows companies a 60% tax rebate on donations to promote culture, but the billionaires were quick to deny that they would be getting any tax breaks for their big hearted gestures.

          This hard to believe display of wealth came at the worse possible time for the French government battling to quell a mini French Revolution. It’s the peasants against the rich with the Yellow Vests brigade protesting, violently in some cases, all over the country for economic justice. This Easter was the 23^rd consecutive week-end that they had rampaged through the streets.

          Philippe Martinez head of Frances’s CGT trade union federation complained that if tens of millions could be given to rebuild Notre Dame they must stop being told there was no money for social upliftment.

'Don't give me that story about these kids being among
the needy, you can see they're just being naughty.'

          It is a terrible indictment of the human race that repairing a building comes well before alleviating human suffering of mammoth proportions in every corner of the globe. This is especially so as fixing Notre Dame is likely to take five years or more. It will then be an even more expensive millstone around the neck of the French people, who have evidently had a gut full of luxury spending at the expense of the likes of the Yellow Vests. 
         At the time of the fire extensive maintenance work was going on judging by the amount of scaffolding around the cathedral. So is seems more than likely that the blaze was started accidentally by one of the workers.
   

'It's clear these people don't need any money from me. That
house will be fine once it dries out.'

         Regards

         Jon

P.S.  In March this year Cyclone Idai killed more than 300 people as it swept through Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi. The harrowing pictures of some of those affected have quotes from an anonymous billionaire.

AUGUSTA GOLF CLUB IS STILL PLAYING ITS MASTERS OF WOMEN GAME

Dear Ladies,

Martha Burk who
got death threats

          How have you allowed America’s Augusta National Golf Club to continue treating you as nobodies for just about all of its 86 year existence?

          Notorious for its racial prejudice and sexist views it has been changing at a snails pace that is the antithesis of the current century. This is particularly appalling considering that its membership includes some of the richest men in the world like Microsoft’s Bill Gates.   

          Home of The Masters that has just been played this championship began life as the August National Invitation Tournament. Even its founders, amateur champion Bobby Jones and banker Clifford Roberts had misgivings about giving the tournament its current name.

          It had hardly started when Roberts proposed the change. Jones felt this was too presumptuous, but five years later Roberts got his way.

          Other words for presumptuous are arrogant, egotistical, insolent and cocksure and the club’s male members that have been running it have certainly lived up to these unenviable characteristics.

          Ironically Tiger Woods, who has just won his fifth Master’s title, would never have been allowed to hit a single shot on the course in its earlier years. As an African American he would only have qualified to have been a caddie. Up to 1983 competitors were compelled to use an Augusta Club caddie and these were traditionally all African American.

          In 1975 one of the club’s worst prejudices began to crumble when Lee Elder became the first African American to be invited to compete in the championship.

          But the club still had a women problem: How to go on keeping them out. With millionaires, and billionaires as members their mothers, wives and other female members of their families were evidently too subservient to their Masters to call them out for their blatant sexism at Augusta. 

          It was left to Martha Burk, a syndicated columnist and women’s rights activist to stir things up among the chauvinist pigs in their cosy Augusta pigsty where some 15% of members are CEO’s of massive corporations. Golf was incidental in this fight. It was about power.

          In 2002 she clashed with the then Chairman William “Hootie” Johnson. He responded by telling the world unashamedly that Augusta was a “single gender” club. He then had the gall to liken it to the Boy Scouts or the Girl Guides.

          She failed in her initial attempt to get the club to accept women as members, when she was refused a permit to protest at the gates during the 2003 Masters.

          Her luck changed later, however. Two gender discrimination law suites brought by her organisation, The Women on Wall Street Project, against companies associated with Augusta resulted in a $79-million settlement.

            Presumably if you treat women badly at your club you more than likely do the same in your company.

Condoleezza Rice

          Burk had to contend with death threats and being called all kinds of names like man hater and lesbian. This did not deter her. She won. Her efforts evidently embarrassed the Augusta Board of Directors into changing their admission policy on women. Grudgingly in 2012 they invited Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State in the Bush administration and Darla Moore, the former president of the private investment firm Rainwater Inc that was founded by her husband Richard, to become members.

          They were more or less forced to invite “Ginni” Rometty to become a member after she became Chief Executive of IBM, one of the main sponsors of The Masters.

The men at the top of this stuffy 300 member club could then congratulate themselves on how well they treated women. After all what more could anybody ask for now that they had three female members?

          Yet the Masters still did little to encourage woman once things had settle down after Burk’s attack.

          For some reason or other the current Chairman Fred Ridley announced a pathetic sop to them that did nothing to eliminate the Club’s clear female prejudice.

          The Augusta National Women’s Amateur Championships would be held just before this year’s Masters. This he claimed was to “inspire greater interest and participation in the women’s game.”

          It fell rather flat when he added that the Club was not contemplating holding a tournament for women similar to The Masters.

          The winner of this year’s event received $2-million for the first time. But the way things are no women will ever win any money at Augusta. That would be going too far in this male reserve.

          It is particularly deplorable that so many leaders of industry should have thought it was okay to prevent people from playing just because they had the wrong skin colour and that women could not be members for being…. women.

          These men proved that in spite of their lofty positions they were not nearly responsible enough to be in a so called “Land of the free.” And I can’t think it can be much fun being one of so few women among all those chauvinist pigs. It’s mucky in there.

          Regards,

          Jon

P.S. One of the Club strange idiosyncrasies involves the green jacket that is presented to every Masters winner. They are tailor made for each winner. Then they are only allowed to keep it for a year before returning it to the club for safe keeping in a special green jacket store room. It seems they can’t trust their winners to look after them on a permanent basis. Nothing could be more terrible than if one got into the wrong hands and a tramp was seen rummaging through rubbish on the side of a road while wearing one of those hallowed garments.

See also augusta-champion-chauvenist-pig

               

SUNDAY TIMES IS AT IT AGAIN WITH 'TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE' INVESTMENT ADS

Dear Readers,

Rose Scott

          As far back as 2010 I started a campaign on my blog to get the Johannesburg based Sunday Times to stop carrying dubious investment advertisements.

          Around that time it published a report in its Money and Careers section which told readers about the danger signs they should look for in advertisements offering investment opportunities.

          One of these was: If it seems too good to be true it probably is. Among the others was: Terms such as ‘act quickly’ or ‘limited space available’ puts pressure on investors to make hasty decisions.

          It was ages before the paper appeared to have stopped taking these kinds of come-ons, which the Group’s one time Ombudsman Joe Latakgomo described as “eroding the public’s trust in newspapers.” He added that “Advertising that makes claims which are patently exaggerated, impact on consumer confidence.”

          This was in an article he wrote headed Beware of dubious adverting claims, which appeared after my complaints to the Sunday Times.

          At one stage when these types of ads were still being carried the paper undertook to ensure that the full contact details, as well as the physical address of the advertiser would have to be included.

           In January this year a prominent ad appeared in the Classified section of the paper. It had some of the same characteristics the paper had warned its readers about all those years ago. It claimed that if you invested a minimum of R350 000 up to a maximum of R1 050 000 you could double your money in two years.

One of the Sunday Times advertisements

The promoters were giving presentations at Johannesburg venues and those interested were told: “Venue and times to be advised on application for a seat. Limited seating available.”

          The contact details were equally limited being only a Red Brick Enterprises email address.

          The paper had this inconspicuous warning in the business section nowhere near the Classified section or any other advertising. The management seems to think that this will absolve it from any responsibility to anybody who might be taken by ads that are not kosher.

          When I tackled Jyoti Govind, National Sales Manager – Direct, Classified & Legals for the Tiso Blackstar Group, the owner of the Sunday Times, about this, she replied on 11 February: “Yes you are correct in saying that we had stopped many of the bogus type investment opportunity advertising sometime back. However, this advert was placed due to the fact that the investors have to attend a presentation prior to committing to investing.”

          How this made the ‘too good to be true’ claims any better only she would know.

          “I do apologise on behalf of the salesperson,” she went on, “for not having a telephone number or physical address in the advertisement. Going forward we will ensure that all the correct details appear. This advert appeared over three weeks and yesterday was the last day of inserting.”

          Although she said she was sorry for what happened she inexplicably refused to give me the missing details “due to a confidentiality clause.” She undertook to ask the client to contact me.

          Soon afterwards Bev Peinke emailed me saying: “We are currently developing a cutting edge estate of 344 apartments along the Garden Route and are very excited for the opportunities on offer to long term investors.” Earlier she assured somebody I know that the returns would be “guaranteed.”

          Their shareholders, she said, would be in Johannesburg on March 11 to hold a presentation at a guest house there.

          “We are limiting the number of seats to 15 which will be allocated on a first come, first serve basis.”

          She evidently thought I was a potential investor, although I had made it clear to Govind that I was journalist who had a blog.

          Bev’s initial answers to my questions gave the impression that she had an interest in Red Brick Enterprises that is proposing to develop an estate called Yikusasa, but she was actually the “executive PA” to Rose Scott Redbrick’s Financial Director.

          When I asked Rose how people were expected to double their money in two years as Bev had referred to it as being for “long term investors,” she told me the ad was correct, but Bev was not.

The 18 ha development site is in the Plettenberg Bay (Bitou) suburb of Ladywood, which an estate agent described as being in a part of the town that has “never taken off.” It is next door to the Black township of Kwanokuthula and consists of small holdings with a poor road infrastructure.

What the proposed apartment blocks will look like

 There were plans to have the offices of the Bitou Municipality centralised in new buildings in Ladywood but this has so far not materialised. The Municipality is currently mired in corruption allegations. These are so bad that according to a November 2018 edition of the Knysna-Plett Herald it could be placed under administration depending on the result of a forensic investigation the municipality tried unsuccessfully to stop.

          According to Scott in her development, which is being sold off-plan, investors were being offered an opportunity to purchase two bedroomed units at a 50% discount on the initial selling price. The proposed selling prices of the units given on the Yikusasa (the future in  isiXhosa)website are one bedroomed from R575 000; two bed R713 000 and three bed R813 000. They are between 50 and 75 sq m.

          “We limited the opportunity to a maximum of three options to buy to spread the risk and to encourage participation from a broader base of investors,” she stated. “The offer is to secure the funding to build furnished show units so that purchasers can see what they are buying.”

          The head of one of Plett’s largest estate agencies had this to say when I told him what the Sunday Times’ advertisement was promising: “There is nothing in the world that can give you that kind of return.”

            “Several people are prepared to take that risk based on the facts and figures presented to them,” Scott countered

          The two and three level blocks of flats will be built in seven stages in an area earmarked for middle to lower income housing.

          At this stage all the planning requirements have not been finalised and the promotional video tells us that construction will start in February, but it doesn’t say which February.

Yikusasa's location

          So those hoping to double there money in two years have to be supreme optimists, especially when the country’s economy is in tatters.

          If anybody should know how unlikely to be true this newspaper advertisement is, it is Rose Scott, because not only is she an accountant in Plett, but she also claims to be the founder of what she calls Better Business Practice.

          Regards

          Jon, a Consumer Watchdog and the Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman, who hopes that the Sunday Times will finally put ethics before money and stop promoting investment opportunities that are too good to be true.

P.S. Bev Peinke told me she ceased working for Red Brick Enterprises on February 19. Her husband owns The Pie Shop in Plett and had nothing to do with Red Brick.