Editor wins battle for media rights
A tenacious editor has secured a significant court victory entrenching the constitutional right of journalists – and, in turn, the public – to ensure transparency in government.
Anton van Zyl is the publisher and editor of the Zoutpansberger and the
Limpopo Mirror, based in Louis Trichardt. He wears many hats. He is the commercial manager and also, because of scarce resources, does reporting.
Last year, when the local Makhado municipality advertised in his newspapers a tender for the sale, to the highest bidder, of what was once a popular public park (turned taxi rank and dumping ground) in what is mainly a residential area in Louis Trichardt, it caught his eye. In July, there were rumours that the two sites, which are some of the last public areas and were zoned accordingly, had been sold.
He asked the municipality for more information. In response, the municipality posted on its website that one site had been sold to Banyana Enterprises and the other to Trendy Tiles and Sanitary Ware.
Van Zyl said this raised numerous questions. Who were these entities? Why had Banayana Enterprises succeeded when its tender was one of the lowest of the eight submitted? And why did Trendy Tiles and Sanitary Ware succeed when its tender was R450 000 lower than another tender submitted by another entity which had offered about R3.8 million for both sites?
The municipality had accepted tenders with a combined value of just more than R3 million when it could have got R800 000 more for both sites. A search revealed that Banyana was based in North West. Van Zyl could find no information at all on Trendy Tiles. Using the Promotion of Access to Information Act, he made an application asking for all documents relating to the two deals. He got no response within the stipulated time frame. He then appealed and again got no response. He turned to the Makhado Magistrate’s Court in Louis Trichardt.
In a ruling handed down this week, Magistrate Vanessa Grundlingh ordered the municipality to supply the relevant documentation within 15 days, saying: “The media plays an important role in providing citizens with information and fostering a culture of transparency.”
In court, the municipality tried to hide behind the Act, which provides for stricter measures for private bodies, and claimed it was protecting the rights of “third party natural persons”. But Grundlingh ruled these provisions did not apply.
The municipality had conceded the third parties were companies and did not qualify for protection.
The municipality also said Van Zyl should “do his own research” and he was abusing the Act “simply looking for a new story when there is nothing there to report on”. The magistrate noted that Van Zyl had done his own research, adding it was not for the municipality to decide if a story should be run.
The municipality also claimed that Van Zyl was abusing the Act by requesting officials to supply newsworthy material to publish in newspapers. In this regard, the magistrate said the municipality had not provided any evidence of the extent of work needed to comply with the request.