Your article, �Maele in land drama� was deliberately scandalous

Correspondent | Friday April 21, 2017 13:09

I note that your article had broken and breached every journalistic ethic to go all out to defame me, even without according me any opportunity to defend myself. I have proven to be adequately open enough to your stable of newspapers where one of your title editors has run several articles about myself and my companies. You could have easily approached me without any difficulty.

One would have thought you would use such channels to give me not only the right of reply but to give your reputable Friday Mmegi a respectable piece of news. I am still wondering whether your actions were deliberate and calculated or just sheer carelessness with the pen by an easily excitable reporter.

I would like to bring to your attention the glaring factual inaccuracies in the said article, expecting you to correct those, and also to take corrective action on your article which is already circulating to millions of readers online, causing unwarranted damage to my reputation.

 

Your racist reference to me as Malawian

In your front page, you refer to me as controversial Malawian, twice, in the blurb. This is racist and also carries xenophobic tone by a leading national newspaper, Mmegi. I am as Motswana as I’m Malawian. I’m born of Motswana mother and Malawian father. This is a fact. What makes you refer to me as the Malawian and less as Motswana. I’m Motswana just as I’m Malawian, stop your xenophobic attitude and accord me the dignity befitting any citizen. Remember your country recently passed dual citizenship law, I’m claiming my birth rights, and there is nothing that anyone including your reporter can do to stop this.

Your blurb comes out ‘clearly that a Malawian should not be assisted just because he is Malawian and your newspaper is allowed to lead the chorus of xenophobia against neighbouring nations. I would like to know whether this is the editorial stand of the Mmegi group to belittle other nations.

I bought the land in question, it was not allocated to me.

Your article insinuated that my company or myself may have been done a favour through land allocation. This is so because you deliberately omits the important fact that my company had bought the land in question, for P3.4million, only to hide that fact at the near end of the story. Now tell me, how many investors have gone all out to buy land of their own just to put investment of the size of P500 million, and to hire over 2000 Batswana permanently? In an era of joblessness, your newspaper and reporter should be welcoming investors like me irrespective of their colour, whether they have Malawian or Zimbabwean blood in them should not be your agenda to destroy them.

 

The area you are questioning is already commercial zone

Your short-sighted article deliberately misled the readers that the area where I bought the land is zoned for agriculture and that I maybe the only person in that area to have been given land use change permission. This is a factual inaccuracy and lack of simple observation on your part on the developments taking place already on the A 1 side of the road along the Mmamashia. I challenge you to drive to Mmamashia anytime and count industries that have emerged in that area in recent years. There are many, from filling stations to manufacturing, to warehouses; Mmamashia area is a beehive of commercial activities of recent, it is not some tribal masimo, as your front page material purports.

 

Your storyline slunt was stiff necked

I also notice that your attitude was one of a stiff necked reporter or editor hell bent at causing destruction and nothing less. This is so because you did not even allow the facts as told to you by minister Maele to sway you; instead you quoted the minister in such a way that he sounded to be at pains explaining the land policy, while the truth is far from the attitude painted by your article.

Minister Maele tells your reporter that there had been changes in the so-called Land Policy of 2015; he shows the reporter that this change in land policy around urban areas can also be observed in towns like Palapye where the likes of Majestic Five and several hotels and malls have been busy developing on what used to be masimo.

It doesn’t take rocket science to observe that the change in policy did not start with the current minister, since the likes of Majestic Five and other many mushrooming commercial developments in Palapye took full swing long before Hon. Maele came into office. The same thing can be said about the numerous developments at Mmamashia, Gaborone North, many of those commercial developments had long been started before the Hon Minister took charge. In fact your article should be wondering why my request for change of land use had dragged for so long in a busy area where change of land use had been the order of the day. But you chose to turn a blind eye to these issues because they would not have helped your scandalous motive.

 

Your reference to $7.8m

“Phiri recently made headlines after being found to be carrying $8million in cash which he had under declared when crossing the border from South Africa to Botswana”.

Your careless and scandalous accusation is not a fact at all. You will have to state where you got this fact, which has not even been presented in court as either fact or allegation against me. For the records the court documents only allege that I deposited $800 000 and R120 000, this is nowhere near the $7.8 million that you are mentioning. I would like to know where you get this figure, that is not mentioned anywhere in the court papers that should be your sources of allegations. You owe me an apology and retraction just as all the newspapers that reported the misinformation and defamation had to retract, including the Sunday Standard and the City Press that you seem to so heavily rely upon for your feed.

 

You insinuate that I may have bribed minister Maele, without proof

“This sparked speculation that Maele could have benefited from Phiri; who has been accused of bribing Government officials in Malawi and South Africa”.

Yet again another gross misdemenour on your reporter. He accuses me of bribing minister Maele without proof, and he makes statements that I “have been accused of bribing Government officials in Malawi and South Africa”.

I have never faced accusation of bribery in Malawi or South Africa. I challenge your reporter to substantiate this so-called facts and inform the reader where and when those charges of bribery of Government officials in Malawi and South Africa, or which courts presided over those accusations and what was the judgement, verdict against Phiri. Your reporter cannot quote any source on this except his careless and wreckless mind and pen, that are being used at my detriment, unfortunately.

 

Your reliance on Amabhungani story disappointing

Your reporter goes on to exhibit laziness and ignorance of the various ways of tender awards by quoting Amabhungani news article with serious shortcomings. The said article attempts to critique Khato Civils $500m water project in Malawi and shoots itself in the foot. Khato Civils in Malawi beat seven other competitors in selected bid for the project.

 This project is a design and build, or a turnkey project. You cannot be discussing feasibility study for a project already awarded since the feasibility of the project was long decided and agreed upon by the project owner, the government of Malawi. Our tender is not about the feasibility of the project, it is a design and build, 1m sure you should be familiar with this term, design and build, it is nothing strange even in Botswana it is common.

I respect the Mmegi newspapers. I have raised these nine points of concerns to enable you to speedily correct the misinformation, damage and defamation and hope to continue to have respect for your titles. I shall be awaiting your intervention on this issue with the urgency that this matter deserves.

Simbi Phiri

Executive Chairman, Khato Civils