RUPERT, TRUTH & THE EMPTY BERETS
The EFF claims Johann Rupert has a ‘totality’ of influence in the economy. Which demonstrates how little the party knows
When it comes to Johann Rupert, there is at least one thing you can agree on with the EFF: there’s clearly a need for much better education. Last week, Julius Malema’s red berets descended on wine country, marching to deliver a “petition” to Remgro’s office in Stellentia Avenue in Stellenbosch.
Speaking on radio, EFF spokesperson Sinawo Tambo deftly illustrated just how awfully dangerous rank ignorance can be.
Asked what Rupert had done, Tambo said he was the “leader of the monopolisation of the wealth of South Africans by white minorities”.
Rupert, he said “leads the grouping of oligarchs” based in Stellenbosch and has “total influence” over the economy.
“Remgro, which he controls, controls the entire retail sphere in SA society. It controls Distell [and] our financial sector [at] the level of Discovery Bank; he is in control of the petroleum industry in SA; in control of the media through eMedia, [OpenView HD] and Naspers; in control of the trade of cigarettes and tobacco, in control of the alcohol industry [and] luxury goods. And he’s even involved in the independent power producers sector at the level of Eskom,” Tambo said.
Rupert, in other words, is to the EFF what Bill Gates is to vaccine conspiracists the world over: the bogeyman responsible for all evil — from rising food prices to the Gucci store refusing to take VBS-branded credit cards.
Only, Tambo got it wrong. For a start:
1. Rupert doesn’t “lead” the Stellenbosch oligarchs. He and Christo Wiese can’t stand each other, and you’d have to be pretty credulous to believe that GT Ferreira, Piet Mouton or Michael Jordaan queue up every morning to get marching orders from Rupert.
2. Remgro doesn’t “control the entire retail sphere”. It has no stake in the largest supermarket groups — Shoprite, Pick n Pay, Spar or Woolworths — and it has no stake in clothing retailers such as Pep, Ackermans, Edgars, TFG or Truworths.
3. Remgro doesn’t “control” SA’s entire financial sector. It does have a (noncontrolling) effective 7.5% stake in Discovery, but it has no stake in the larger Standard Bank, Nedbank or Absa. Remgro does have 3.3% of FirstRand — but only in the loneliest disinformation universe would this be “monopoly” control.
4. While it’s fashionable to say Rupert “controls” the media, inconveniently, he only owns 32.3% of eMedia, which runs e.tv. He has no stake in the SABC, Newzroom Afrika, Caxton, Arena or Daily Maverick. It’s like saying the EFF “controls” parliament thanks to its 10.6% of the vote.
5. Remgro has no stake in Naspers, which owns News24 and MultiChoice. Rather, Koos Bekker and Cobus Stofberg largely control Naspers, through the unlisted “A” shares. And Bekker also doesn’t report to Rupert.
6. While Remgro did once have a large stake in the greasy British American Tobacco (BAT), it no longer does. Instead, fund managers such as Allan Gray and BlackRock own larger stakes in BAT than Rupert.
7. Rupert has no stake in the largest alcohol producer in the country, SA Breweries, which is really owned by the Belgian brewer AB InBev. And while Remgro did own 31% of Distell, which dominates brandy and cider sales, it’s now selling that to Heineken.
Despite this, Tambo argues that Rupert has “a totality of influence” and, as a result, he is “directing the political trajectory in our country”.
Here again, you have to suspend disbelief and imagine that along with the oligarchs, President Cyril Ramaphosa also dutifully dials in each morning to get instructions from Rupert. Ludicrous, sure — but not to the EFF.
Nonetheless, the EFF handed a memo to Remgro, giving it 14 days to comply with its “demands ”— including, you know, giving back all the land taken by white people and providing an audited report of its taxes. It’s a pity the EFF doesn’t do any research, since it can easily find an audited account of Remgro’s taxes in its annual report.
So, let’s help: in that report, Remgro says it paid R1.13bn tax on its R4.57bn of profit — about 24% — partly to demonstrate “responsible corporate citizenship”. (Interestingly, the last anyone heard of Malema’s tax affairs was that he was assessed by the SA Revenue Service for R16m for failing to declare his income properly between 2005 and 2011).
And were the EFF into such menial tasks as research, it would read in the report how, last year, Remgro donated R500m to relief funds supporting small businesses hit by the pandemic.
It would also see that Remgro donated R25m to the Khaya Lam Land Reform Project, which buys and transfers title deeds to township residents so they get “unambiguous right of access”. So far, “2,908 title deeds have been delivered, or are in the process of being delivered”. For the next tranche, 2,570 title deeds are due to be handed over.
Now if only the EFF could claim that sort of tangible progress.