Business Day
*Gupta Group to fund ‘ANC-sympathetic’ newspaper* *Chantelle Benjamin, Business Day, Johannesburg, 6 July 2010 *THE Gupta Group — which is closely linked to President Jacob Zuma and the African National Congress (ANC) — is funding a national daily newspaper due to go public in September.
It will be called The New Age and one of the people behind it is Essop Pahad , whose magazine The Thinker is also bankrolled by the Guptas.
Yesterday, Mr Pahad said the newspaper “is not, and will not be, affiliated to the ANC”.
The newspaper is likely to add to competition for the government’s lucrative recruitment advertising, which is currently dominated by the Sunday Times.
When he was minister in the Presidency, Mr Pahad threatened to withdraw recruitment advertising from the Sunday Times in protest at its coverage of the government.
The daily newspaper market in SA is a tough one to crack. In 2004, ThisDay folded after just a year and another, Nova, went under after five months in 2006. More recently, newspapers were hard hit by declining advertising revenue during the recession.
Mr Pahad confirmed that former Business Day journalist Vuyo Mvoko, who was most recently spokesman for the Ithala Development Finance Corporation, will be editor.
The Gupta group, consisting of Atul Gupta, MD of Sahara Computers, along with his brothers, Anil and Rajesh, is described as entrepreneurial and IT-focused, with a significant interest in mining.
The ANC has made no secret of its dissatisfaction with the media and its belief that media companies are unfairly critical of it. At its Polokwane conference in 2007 it was agreed that an ANC-aligned newspaper was needed, but the biggest stumbling block has been to find a financier.
The New Age will target the middle to top end of the market and will be based in Gauteng — it is believed at Sahara’s Midrand offices.
Although Mr Pahad and a spokesman from Sahara Computers yesterday denied the new newspaper would be ANC-affiliated, it is understood in media circles that it will be “sympathetic” to the party.
Media analyst and the head of Journalism and Media Studies at Wits University, Anton Harber, said yesterday the newspaper would be a “healthy addition to the mix of voices” but that it was important that “they are clear and open about where they are coming from”.
He said there was a need to ensure that government departments did not favour the new publication when it came to recruitment advertising, which he said “would be illegal”.
Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) spokesman Patrick Craven yesterday also welcomed the competition, saying the labour federation had always felt that “print media were owned by too few companies”.
Yesterday, a report indicated that Cosatu and mining-related unions were at loggerheads with Shiva Uranium over allegations that it plans to force workers to work under a labour broker. Shiva’s directors include Mr Zuma’s son, Duduzane, and Atul Gupta.
The Gupta Group has also been in the news over a mining dispute. Kumba Iron Ore launched legal proceedings in May against the Department of Mineral Resources and questioned a decision to award prospecting rights on a 21,4% stake in a Sishen iron ore mine to little-known Imperial Crown Trading. Jagdish Parekh is an executive of Gupta firm JIC Mining, which holds half of Imperial, which was awarded the stake.
Business Day has since published a report indicating that the application by Imperial Crown Trading for prospecting rights over the Sishen mine was stamped by the Department of Mineral Resources before it was signed by the applicant.
Queries sent to Atul Gupta about The New Age were referred to Mr Pahad. A journal called New Age existed in the 1960s, and included Walter Sisulu and Albie Sachs on its staff.
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