Thank you all for your outstanding support. Just a quick update. I've been extremely quiet of late I’ve been dealing with a criminal complaint of defamation and civil claim for damages lodged by the South African Football Association (SAFA), President Danny Jordaan and Chief Financial Officer Gronie Hluyo, and others against me.
This in relation to the High-Level Risk Report I published on Change.org and this subsequently blowing up in the media.
By way of apology, I've been quiet because I wanted to get all my ducks in a row.
I regard both actions as Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (“SLAPP Lawsuit”). Both cynical, the former is simply using the #criminaljusticesystem to achieve a different outcome, albeit with the same aim.
To silence and harass me.
I was visited a few weeks back by members of the Directorate of Priority Crimes Investigation (DPCI), more commonly known as the HAWKS requesting a statement from me with regards to the matter.
I was left at a loss as to which aspects of my report are being challenged, despite request for clarity on what I must answer to. It is also not clear to me on what basis in law I was being called on to make a statement. This was not made clear to me and thus the exercise appears to have been a fishing expedition.
Mostly, I also couldn’t understand why a simple criminal #defamation case would fall under the remit of a “priority” crime.
I prepared a cracker statement anyway, I set out to do it in such a way as to serve four simultaneous purposes.
1. To respond to the ambiguous statement request from the HAWKS;
2. To simultaneously anticipate a request from the actual Investigating Officer on the case requesting a warning statement and write the statement accordingly;
3. Prepare it to address the (un) civil claim; and
4. Ensure that the statement also served the purpose of fulfilling the requirements of a public media statement.
In short, I am the author of the report, I am not the originator of any of the allegations, claims, or specific information contained in the report whatsoever.
I did so in the public interest and for the public benefit.
I addressed what risks the allegations, claims or specific information might pose and indicate, and what the allegations when considered in the context of public perception and #corporategovernance, #risk and #compliance might very well suggest or imply.
Paramount among the concerns is the impression of a seeming opacity around operational audit trails while a “clean annual financial audit” is repetitively trumpeted as sole indicator of oversight probity. This is the terrain of an Enron, WorldCom and our very own Steinhoff, which all had clean audits, until they didn’t.
Perhaps the entire report is deemed defamatory by inference drawn from the entire contents. I can only respond, I made a shoe from many parts I found openly scattered around.
I didn't, nor could I, predetermine what the end result might look like.
If the shoe is ugly, this is due to the material resource (information) available at the time.
I cannot be blamed for that, or who would choose to put it on, and start walking and quacking like a duck.
I guess I'm ready. If serving me with a SLAPP suit and charges was meant to keep me quiet, it's not going to work. I won't be keeping quiet.
Have a super lekka day.
Warmest regards
Bart