Babies’ plot thickens
MORE DETAILS: WRITER NEVER SAW MOTHER IN PERSON
Rampedi still stands by his story and claims he has evidence he ‘can’t share at the moment’.
Areport from the Sunday Times has revealed further details about the increasing implausibility that a woman from Tembisa ever gave birth to 10 babies this month, as reported by Pretoria News editor Piet Rampedi.
Rampedi has stuck to his guns and even gone so far as to claim that criticism of his reporting is a personal attack on him.
His employer, Independent Media, has now started an investigation of his work amid a looming lawsuit from the state against it due to Rampedi alleging it has all been an official cover-up and conspiracy.
The Sunday Times has now reported that even the name of the woman in Rampedi’s front-page story was not correct and that she was actually born in 1972, making her 48 and turning 49 this year. Rampedi initially reported her age as 37. A Gauteng government memorandum sent to the premier, which the Sunday Times had sight of, also reportedly revealed the woman needing psychological counselling and had supposedly been suicidal.
Speaking to 702’s Clement Manyathela on Friday, Rampedi argued that he did not rely on hearsay in pursuing the story, as the woman’s family members and the “nonexistent” babies’ supposed father, Teboho Tsotetsi, had told him the woman was pregnant.
Rampedi said Sithole had also sent him pictures and her Google location from the Steve Biko Academic Hospital in Pretoria.
The editor, however, could not say how he had verified that Sithole was pregnant because he personally had not seen her stomach. He said he had evidence he “cannot share at the moment”.
On Thursday, Rampedi claimed the reason for the alleged cover-up of the extraordinary births was that his numerous investigative articles over the years had made him a target of the powers that be, especially President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government.
“I stand by my story. Ms Sithole was pregnant and gave birth to 10 babies on 7 June, 2021. It’s a fact,” he wrote on IOL.
Rampedi pointed out he had never apologised to his colleagues for having written the reports about Sithole’s decuplet delivery. He said he only apologised to them “because it was used by my detractors to impugn their professional integrity, thus affecting their reputations”.
On Wednesday the Gauteng provincial government announced it would go the legal route against the Independent Media Group and Rampedi for the story. The provincial government has maintained there is no record of the delivery of decuplets at any health facility in the province. –