Apology to Brimstone

● The Sunday Times apologises to Brimstone and three of its executives, Takula Tapela, Iqbal Khan and Tiloshani Moodley, for creating the false and unfair impression that fronting was the issue in a transaction with Viking Fishing Group, and that the executives stood to gain personally from the transaction to the tune of billions of rands.

We also apologise for unnecessarily tarnishing their reputations and dignity in the process, and for omitting material information from Moodley, namely that:

● Brimstone was a black-owned company;

● The transaction would introduce two new broad-based BEE companies to the fishing industry;

● The fishing rights of the majority whiteowned Viking would be acquired by Sea Harvest, a consortium that would be 88% black-owned;

● Brimstone did not have any involvement in Nalitha, and held no shareholding interest in Nalitha or the South African Fishing Empowerment Corporation; and

● Neither Brimstone nor the three executives were shareholders in the corporation.

Brimstone and the executives complained to press ombudsman Johan Retief about a story “Top executives set to score in BEE front companies” (June 17).

Retief ordered the apologies and reprimanded us for inaccurately stating that Brimstone had an 85% interest in Sea Harvest. The correct figure is 54.9%.

He dismissed complaints that we should not have published allegations of uncompetitive behaviour made by the National Certificated Fishing & Allied Workers Union, as well as complaints that we did not ask for a response on material issues or give the parties sufficient time to respond.

Visit presscouncil.org.za for the full finding.