AfriForum’s response to News24’s hit piece regarding AfriForum’s involvement in traditional communities, including Orania, and the mandate given to it by our members:

The “revelations” reported by News24 are old news that AfriForum itself has made public on numerous occasions. However, for the record, this is how I once again responded to News24’s questions:

Good day Kyle

Thank you for your email. I will gladly respond.

I have already answered the majority of the 149 questions sent to me as part of News24’s fishing expedition, despite the fact that the answers have long been common knowledge. News24 has not “revealed” anything unlawful in its series of witch hunt articles against AfriForum. On the contrary, the public response, including that of News24’s own readers, shows that anti AfriForum activists at News24 are causing serious damage to the credibility of your own news platform.

I am happy to respond under four main themes as follows:

1) Community federalism, traditional and cultural communities, and Orania

Had you conducted thorough research, you would have seen that AfriForum is open about the fact that we are “community builders” who believe that strong and self reliant communities are the best buffer against the deterioration of the state that has taken place under successive ANC governments. AfriForum has already published numerous magazines and held congresses on themes such as “community federalism”, “organised communities as an unofficial fourth sphere of government”, “we will do it ourselves”, and cooperation with cultural and traditional communities across the country.

1.1 Cooperation with cultural communities

Despite the fact that AfriForum has sent News24 numerous media statements about AfriForum’s cooperation projects and agreements with a wide range of cultural communities, News24 has thus far refused to publish anything about them. At the very least, News24’s “revelation” of this old news will allow the public to see the extensive work AfriForum is doing to promote community self reliance across the country, including in Orania.

1.2 Formal recognition and cooperation agreements

In addition to cooperation with Orania, official cooperation agreements have been concluded with, among others, the following communities:

• AmaBhele kaJamangile
• Barolong Boo Seleka
• Cape Forum (Coloured community)
• Batlharo Boo Tokwana Ba Ga Masibi
• Bakgatla Ba Kgafela
• Batlharo Ba Ga Motlhware
• Nama Afrikaner family clan
• Royal Leaders of South Africa (ROLESA)
• Vulamehlo Kusile Organisation (VUKO), an Ndebele organisation and community structure

AfriForum has also helped to establish a network of cultural communities, in cooperation with more than 30 traditional communities across the country, to promote cooperation.

1.3 Practical community projects in cultural communities, including Orania

AfriForum has already provided support for various agricultural and other projects in the above communities, including projects carried out in cooperation with the National House of Traditional and Khoi San Leaders. In Orania, AfriForum’s single largest investment is the establishment of a security building from which AfriForum coordinates the organisation’s security initiatives in the Northern Cape. AfriForum is proud of the development work being done in Orania and elsewhere in the country.

1.4 Financial expenditure on community projects

You are already in possession of AfriForum’s financial statements, which reflect AfriForum’s expenditure on community projects. Apart from the false salary information that you published without verifying its accuracy in accordance with ethical journalistic standards, and without mentioning that salary expenditure accounts for only 36% of AfriForum’s expenditure, you also misrepresented AfriForum as spending little money on local projects, despite the answers I provided to you. In your hit pieces (campaign journalism) on AfriForum, you deliberately excluded other operational expenditure necessary to enable AfriForum, as an organisation, to carry out these projects.

Regarding your new questions about AfriForum’s expenditure, I wish to refresh your memory with the following information that I already provided in my previous response to you:

“In the questions that you directed to AfriForum, specific mention was made of the R42 million that was allocated, for the six year period that you refer to, to projects in Orania. Note that this amount represents 2.5% of AfriForum’s income in the relevant period. In contrast, 67.5%, or more than R1.1 billion, of AfriForum’s income for the relevant period was spent on projects in numerous other towns, suburbs and cities in which AfriForum is active.”

We are very satisfied that this expenditure across the country, and specifically the investments in Orania, has yielded good cultural and financial returns.

Our activities include repairing roads, cutting grass, appointing neighbourhood teams that work full time to improve communities, removing refuse, running recycling projects, establishing emergency water points, operating 177 neighbourhood watches, monitoring landfill sites and water quality, as well as numerous other projects.

1.5 Mandate from AfriForum members

At every AfriForum congress where AfriForum’s community projects across the country have been discussed, these projects have been endorsed by congress delegates. AfriForum also keeps its members continuously informed about these projects through the organisation’s magazine and other channels. AfriForum’s members also give the organisation a mandate for these projects every month through their monthly contributions.

Furthermore, regular research conducted among AfriForum members by the AfriForum Research Institute shows overwhelming support for the work undertaken through AfriForum’s community self reliance projects, including the projects in Orania.

2) AfriForum’s salaries

It is public knowledge that News24, as part of Media24, refuses to disclose its salary information to Solidarity, the largest trade union within Media24. This is despite the fact that the union requires such information to negotiate how cost savings can be achieved without Media24 employees being retrenched. It is regrettable that News24’s unethical journalism has alienated your readers to such an extent that it is jeopardising the jobs of your hardworking and ethical colleagues at Media24.

Given the above, it is strange that you believe you have any moral basis for insisting on information that your own organisation refuses to disclose.

I wish to place the following on record: Your request for information regarding AfriForum’s salary structures, after you had already published false information regarding these structures, is an acknowledgement that you did not have the correct information before claiming in your article that you did. Despite this, you proceeded to publish false claims about AfriForum’s salaries as fact. You acted unethically by making defamatory claims about Werner Human and others, based on incorrect information about their salaries, without adhering to basic journalistic principles by asking them to confirm the accuracy of the information before publication.

3) News24’s lack of transparency

In the interest of transparency, AfriForum did not oppose News24’s request to the Department of Social Development for access to AfriForum’s financial statements, and I have already answered the majority of News24’s 149 questions directed to me. This does not include the dozens of other questions sent to other institutions within the Solidarity Movement. Yet News24 does not subject itself to the same standard of transparency that it demands of others.

To refresh your memory in this regard, the following forms part of what I wrote to you on 21 July:

“I wish to place on record that, in the interest of transparency, AfriForum has already answered 79 questions from News24 comprehensively (The number of questions directed to AfriForum has since increased to 149). AfriForum’s detailed response to News24’s first fishing expedition, consisting of 67 questions, apparently failed to provide any material to advance News24’s anti AfriForum agenda. News24 subsequently made a second attempt with a further 12 questions, which AfriForum also answered comprehensively. In apparent desperation, News24 has now continued its fishing expedition with another 26 questions.

“It should also be placed on record that, unlike AfriForum’s commitment to transparency, News24 has steadfastly refused to answer any questions regarding the R8 million donation, or any other amount, made by the group of which it forms part to the ANC over recent years, as well as why the company of which News24 forms part stopped publishing its financial statements in 2021. Unlike AfriForum, News24 has also categorically refused to grant AfriForum access to News24’s financial statements.

“To refresh your memory, below is the substance of the questions that you and News24 have now refused to answer for almost a month, and which you are once again requested to answer:

• Can News24 confirm that its parent company, Naspers, donated R8 million, or any other amount, to the ANC between 2021 and 2025?
• Does News24 agree that, under ANC led national and local governments, the country has descended into a corruption pandemic, and that numerous ANC public representatives have been accused of serious corruption?
• Is News24 comfortable with the fact that its parent company funds a corrupt political party and is therefore indirectly complicit in promoting corruption?
• If News24 is uncomfortable with Naspers’s support for the ANC, has News24 expressed its opposition to such support? If not, why not?
• Do you agree that Naspers’s support for the ANC, while News24 pursues what appears to be a political vendetta against organisations such as AfriForum that expose ANC corruption, has the effect of protecting the ANC?
• News24/Media24 stopped publishing its own financial statements in 2021. May I request that you send me the unpublished financial statements? Please also explain why you stopped publishing them. In addition, please provide me with the salaries of News24’s journalists.

“I await your response.”

You refused to answer.

4) Solidarity and AfriForum

I see that you directed one set of questions in the same correspondence to both me and Dr Dirk Hermann of Solidarity. Although independent research shows that both AfriForum and Solidarity enjoy the support of 81% of Afrikaners, that only 2% of Afrikaners have a very negative view of us, and that we also enjoy growing support among all communities, as an investigative journalist, you should know that Solidarity and AfriForum are separate legal entities that form part of the Solidarity Movement. Nevertheless, Dr Hermann has indicated to me that he will respond to your correspondence. I will therefore provide additional background only on behalf of AfriForum.

Please note once again that I reserve the right to publish the response I have provided to you should News24’s planned article fail to reflect AfriForum’s position accurately.

Kallie Kriel

CEO

AfriForum