Build One South Africa leader Mmusi Maimane has been ordered to pay over R475,000 in damages for defamation to four former DA councillors he wrongly accused of being implicated in maladministration at the City of Cape Town five years ago.
The order against Maimane was delivered in the Western Cape High Court on Friday.
Maimane, who was DA leader at the time had accused former councillors Suzette Little, Siya Mamkeli, Thulani Stemele and Greg Barnardo of being implicated in a Bowmans report which found maladministration at the City. All four joined the GOOD party which was launched by Patricia de Lille in 2018.
All four had resigned as DA councillors when Maimane told the media a day after the resignations that the Bowman’s Report had “made serious findings against those people, they must be investigated.”
He wrote in the DA newsletter: “… a credible forensic investigation by a credible legal firm has allegedly implicated them in tender irregularities, the DA is suddenly a racist party.
“These five councillors have resigned, claiming racial victimhood. Can it be coincidence that they have suddenly decided the DA is racist now that they stand accused of maladministration?"
He did not apologise when the four called on him to retract his statement and apologize.
Acting Judge Susan van Zyl said Maimane made his plea statement in the matter in February 2019, but in March 2023, just days before the trial, he amended his plea and finally apologised and made a full retraction of the statements in the Sunday Times newspaper, and on the TimesLive website.
He also offered to pay the former councillors R35,000 each in compensation and costs.
“The plaintiffs rejected the apology and the tender as being ‘too little, too late’,” said acting judge van Zyl.
She ordered Maimane to pay August R100,000 in damages, Little and Stemele R120,000 each, and Barnardo R135,000.
Costs were also awarded on the High Court scale.
In the judgment, acting judge van Zyl said Maimane did not comply with a letter of demand that he retract and apologise for the statements a day after they were made.
She said an attempt to comply was bungled as the second statement was also wrongful and defamatory.
“He (Maimane) admitted that the statements were made with the intention to defame the plaintiffs and to injure their reputations, and that they were widely published to a large national and international audience, including different language print and electronic media.
“He admitted that the statements were understood by the readers thereof and were intended by the defendant to mean that the plaintiffs were dishonest in that the Bowman's Report made adverse findings against them, and that they were corrupt,” wrote van Zyl.
The court said the impact of the defamatory statements against the former councillors was huge and that they came from the national leader of the DA made things worse.
In the case of August, who left the DA to join Patricia De Lille’s GOOD party, he was unable to secure a stipend from a donor due to the saga.
“Many people to whom Mr August spoke believed those allegations rather than Mr August’s denials. He felt rejected where he was previously welcomed. He was no longer invited to speak as a motivational speaker at meetings of NGOs or schools.
“He was often asked by his colleagues in politics about the progress with the defamation case against the defendant, and as recently as four weeks prior to the trial he was questioned about it by a politician in Struisbaai during a local election campaign,” wrote Van Zyl in the judgment.
She added: “The ability to raise funds for the new political party was also negatively impacted. The person who would have provided the stipend for Mr August to support himself until the May 2019 elections, Mr Rodney Lentit, was no longer willing to do so. The defendant’s allegations of corruption against Mr August caused the previous friendly relationship with Mr Lentit to sour”.
Barnardo said his family was impacted negatively as he was left unemployed, faced an eviction, lost his vehicle and the family was helped by his wife, who works as a teacher.
He said he struggled to secure employment afterwards until he was hired on a short-term basis in November 2021 by mayoral candidate Brett Herron.
He eventually got hired as a researcher for GOOD in the City earning about R21,000 monthly, whereas he used to earn about R600,000 as a councillor.
Other former councillors were also shunned similarly and they all said had Maimane retracted and apologized earlier, the damage may have been averted.
IOL