Guptas hone in on new R20 million newspaper deal: report
The Gupta family has plans for a new daily newspaper which will provide “prominent coverage” of Mpumalanga premier David Mabuza’s provincial government and will be funded by taxpayers. This is according to a report in the Sunday Times.
The report stated that tender documents for the project show the planned newspaper will be distributed to all municipalities in the province and will costs millions to run.
“All provincial government departments and municipalities in Mpumalanga would be expected to advertise in it,” stated the report.
The Gupta family’s involvement in The New Age newspaper, and the money it receives from the government and state-owned enterprises through advertising, means the new project is of concern.
This includes The New Age newspaper being implicated in a money laundering scheme in which R17 million was paid to the publication using fictitious invoices for advertising.
R20-million deal
The report stated that the draft proposal projected the newspaper contract to be worth over R20 million for three years and that it has been “tailor made to suit… TNA Media” – owners of The New Age.
Provincial spokesman Zibonele Mncwango said Mpumalanga was not looking to partner exclusively with TNA Media on the newspaper project, and that “any newspaper” was invited to partner with them.
“We are currently sharing a page with Limpopo [in The New Age] and it is not paid for. We would like to have prominence from page one to three of a newspaper,” he said.
“We wish to reiterate that the provincial government did not offer anything to The New Age.”
The full report is available in the Sunday Times of 5 February 2017.
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