Alec Hogg writes:
Dear Mr Kocks,
We are affording you a right of reply on Biznews which will take the form of publishing your emails. We published Mr Britton’s contribution in good faith as we will be doing yours.
You will need to engage directly with Fin24 on your demands there – they are a valued content partner and entitled Biznews articles as they see fit. How they decide to respond is their decision.
The emails from Charl Kocks of Ratings Afrika:
Ratings Afrika is misquoted in an extremely serious manner in the article by Mr Bryan Britton on BizNews 29 April 2016.
He states:
“The current ANC political leadership in control of the majority of municipalities has demonstrated over the last five years, and more, to not being capable of sound governance. This is the main cause of their low financial sustainability,” Ratings Afrika said.” (My colouring and bolding added.)
The fact is that Ratings Afrika did NOT name a political party. This is because the party in control is NOT always the ANC; but more importantly, the sentence is to underscore that the politicisation of municipalities is (in a majority of cases) is now affecting their ability to act appropriately; and there are multiple facets to that statement.
We strive to remain apolitical in our analyses, which is a critical factor of our business sustainability; and in one fell swoop Mr Britton and your news service has damaged this. I regard this to be extremely unfair and journalistically dishonest.
As Step One, please correct this very serious error very publicly; and please do so also at the level of Fin24 who lifted your article.
With great disappointment.
Kocks’ second email reads:
Thank you for what I regard as Step One, namely removing the letters ‘ANC’ from the quotation from our press release, both on BizNews and on Fin24.
As mentioned, what happened was not only wholly unacceptable (to put it mildly) but also hugely damaging in both reputational and business terms. Ratings Afrika must at all times act impartially, and be seen to act impartially; and especially in an area like municipal sustainability and service delivery, heightened by the fact that municipal elections are in the offing, needs to be respected as a non-partisan commentator and remain completely out of party politics. We have achieved this throughout since CA-Ratings first published its Assessments of Debt Governance for the municipalities almost 20 years ago, and we remain steadfast in this respect.
In this context, in order to settle this matter, we request most strongly that as Step Two you publish on BizNews and on Fin24 in a prominent manner (specifically, no less prominent than the manner wherein the article(s) appeared) and for no shorter period than the articles were carried, unambiguous wording that achieves the following:
- Sets out the misleading quotation and the fact that Ratings Afrika at no time made such a statement or inference; and
- Clarifies that Ratings Afrika has made it abundantly clear that it remains apolitical in all respects, as it has always been.
We request that you provide us with the draft wording of the retraction and clarifications before publishing them.
We reserve all our rights in respect of this matter.