SOWETAN | EFF’s Mnisi must face sanctions

On Wednesday last week we published a damning story of an EFF PR councillor,  Thomas Mnisi, who was accused of trying to extort R6m from a contractor  building  the Mpumalanga parliamentary village. 

Mnisi was caught on a secret recording making demands for payment from White Hazy Construction owner Saul Siwela. While admitting to asking for the money, he said it was for the benefit of the community.

After the publication of the story, Mnisi sought to intimidate reporter Mandla Khoza, who wrote the article, by threatening his family.  On Thursday, Khoza opened a case of intimidation with Mbombela police against Mnisi, who demanded  they meet and that  Khoza publishes a story favouring him by Friday.

Threatening a journalist and his family  is unacceptable in a democracy, where freedom of the press is guaranteed by the constitution.

People who disagree with how this newspaper covers any story have several ways to express themselves, including approaching the press ombudsman.

That Mnisi, accused of  the serious crime of extortion,  could be emboldened to issue threats against our reporter for doing his job is disturbing and objectionable.  Especially because Mnisi is an elected official who  has to account for alleged actions that border on criminality.

Furthermore, he was provided with the opportunity to state his side of the story, which included the fact that he did not deny making the demands for money but rather sought to explain  that it was on behalf of the community. As an elected councillor, Mnisi should be  aware of the code of conduct not only  regarding the importance of media freedom but also on how councillors generally ought to conduct themselves.

But clearly Mnisi believes he is above reproach,  and can go around harassing and intimidating journalists. While he may think he is all powerful, his cowardly act of intimidation is not going to make his troubles go away.

We are not going to take his threats lightly and we are going to see to it that police and the Mbombela council  that pays his salary  with public funds act on his  outrageous and despicable behaviour.