Mbete denies libellous tweets
NATIONAL Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete has denied social media allegations that she has undisclosed business interests, and is seeking legal advice for an appropriate course of action, Parliament said.
Mbete had noted with dismay the dissemination of false, malicious, and defamatory gossip on Twitter claiming she had several business interests, not divulged to Parliament’s registrar of members’ interests, parliamentary spokesman Moloto Mothapo said.
“The source of these outrageous and spurious claims, retweeted thousands of times and repeated by other accounts, seems to be a parody Twitter account called @AdvBarryRoux. It said “Baleka Mbete owns 146 trucks, her trucks transport iron ore and coke (not cold drink some type of coal) from Kuruman to Durban, and she hired 136 Zimbabweans and only 10 South Africans. She did not disclose this to parliament. #ZumaFiles”.
Another account, @alfred_cabonena, rehashes the claim verbatim.
“The faceless @AdvBarryRoux account, in particular, had been spreading fabricated and malicious claims against prominent South Africans seemingly without any shred of evidence,” Mothapo said.
Mbete said all the claims were false and baseless. She had no interests, financial or otherwise, in any of these business entities, let alone logistics or trucking companies. All her assets had been declared… “Those tweeters had no right under the law to disseminate false, defamatory gossip on social media”. – African News Agency (ANA)