On 28 March 2020, Sowetan published an article with a headline: "Estate Agency Affairs board CEO wants former member declared 'a delinquent director' ", which was angled on the agency's CEO Mamodupi Mohlala's threat to go to court to have the agency's former chairperson of the audit and risk committee (ARC), Sedzani Mudau, declared a "delinquent director".

We apologise and retract the article.

In the article we referred to Ms Mudau as a former board member while in fact she was the independent member and chairperson of the ARC. The error was introduced during the editing process. As she was not a director at the EAAB she could not possibly be declared a "delinquent director" as claimed.

The story was based on two letters, Mudau's resignation letter who accused the board of failing to hold Mohlala accountable and to stop her from personally attacking her.

The second was Mohlala's response to the board, in which she alleged that Mudau had left after losing more than R2 million through irregular contracts and budget overspend.

As the information contained in the response from Mudau and other official records or sources indicated otherwise, we should have independently verified the allegations about the losses to establish if they were reasonably true, before publishing.

The article has been removed from our online platforms.

We regret the error and apologise unreservedly for any harm or inconvenience.