Old foes locked in legal spat
Ehrenreich rejects Premier’s demand to retract remarks
OLD foes Premier Helen Zille and Cosatu provincial secretary Tony Ehrenreich are locked in a heated legal battle. This comes after the trade unionist was issued with legal papers by Zille’s lawyers instructing him to retract comments made about a company, Paper Video, owned by Zille’s son, Paul Maree.
Ehrenreich, in a letter dated May 28, said: “I have received the letter from your lawyers advising me to bow at your colonial throne, and apologise for questioning your official conduct.
“I will go to jail before I apologise for holding the governance system to account.”
Zille’s lawyer, John MacRobert, in his letter, dated May 8, said Ehrenreich, in a memorandum on a Cosatu letterhead dated September 27, 2017, stated: “In fact, we have seen that the premier has forced the Education Department to give her son laptops to run a programme that made the huge amounts of money from the provincial government. Zille and Zuma set their sons up in business.”
MacRobert said the words were also broadcast and published by Ehrenreich through a loudhailer to a large assembled throng and onlookers on the day of delivery.
He said Ehrenreich’s remarks (or part thereof) were subsequently reported and published on multiple media platforms and in social media. “These assertions are devoid of truth. Our client did not force the procurement of the tablets on the Western Cape Education Department or any other