Report on RFG unfair and created false impression

SOWETAN apologises to the Reboni Furniture Group for neglecting to adequately report the comments of one of its directors, Ria Ledwaba, on some serious allegations levelled against the group, for creating the false impression that the Department of Labour’s inspection was done immediately prior to publication, and for a misleading headline.

The RFG lodged a complaint with the Press Ombudsman about a story on November 7, headlined “We ’ re being exploited”.

A headline on the front page read “Ria’s horror factory: One worker dead and two mutilated – Page 5”.

The story, written by Mogomotsi Selebi, said that factory workers at RFG had accused Ledwaba of caring more about profits that their well-being.

It also contained allegations of an exploitative working environment at RFG.

Selebi wrote that some employees protested outside the company’s premises against the high rate of accidents, one of which reportedly resulted in somebody’s death in March of the previous year.

Press Ombudsman Johan Retief directed us to apologise, saying that we neglected to report the RFG’s views on most of the serious allegations made against it –“the most important of which probably was that its safety standards always met all required specifications and it underwent annual risk audits to maintain its compliance ”.

Retief dismissed RFG’s complaint about seven sentences that attributed details to sources.

He said: “These sources had the right to say what they reportedly did, and the newspaper had the right to publish them.”

He also rejected the complaint that some of these sentences were out of context.