Two Bits

Isn’t the rain just great! I hope the downpour of the last few days is but a taste of the Spring rains!
Reporting the news is not without its pitfalls. Readers want to know what is going on in their community, but sometimes the subjects of the news are not so pleased. Over the years The North Coast Courier has received its share of threats of lawsuits. None have gone to court, but they have ensured that my life is, shall we say, interesting.
Last December we featured several stories about the collapse of the Ballito/Umhlali Christmas Market after market traders accused the organiser of short-changing them, and because of a fallout between the organiser and her staff/helpers.
This May, six months after the market, I received a letter from Durban lawyer Tashjya Giyapersad representing organiser Heidi Garbade, accusing the Courier of publishing lies and false information. She demanded a front page apology and an interview with Ms Garbade “wherein the truth may be obtained”.
I stand by what was published and reject the claim of defamation and demand for an apology. However, I thought it might be interesting to meet Ms Garbade and judge her story in a less heated situation than the Christmas market fiasco.
Ms Garbade is a striking blonde, blue-eyed, Namibian of German extraction, now a Ballito resident, with a pleasant manner and a long career in event organising all over the country. A quick  search online reveals that controversy follows her around.
For 30 minutes she explained in great detail how the Courier articles had been entirely incorrect, that she had been short-changed by her one-time partner, Brenda Els of Ballito and employee Tasmyn Jain van Niekerk of Tinley Manor, that they had spread false rumours about her and had told police that she was stealing the traders’ money, who then arrested her and locked her up in Umhlali cells for a couple of hours.
Els and Van Niekerk are equally adamant in denying any complicity in what went wrong at the market. Els had been her partner in the run-up to the event, but they had apparently fallen out and Garbade says she bought her out for R30 000, but had kept her on to help with the running of the market on a commission basis. Els in turn denies that she was paid the R30 000 or any commission.
Garbade is currently suing Van Niekerk and Els for defamation of character, claiming they have blackened her name by sending potential clients the Courier articles and saying that Garbade is a fraudster.
“I had never been in that situation before,” said Garbade. “The market had been very successful for two days but could not carry on. Brenda was so jealous of its success and wanted money, then the traders and my lawyer decided that the market should close because it was out of control.”
No mention of the fact that traders were abandoning ship as fast as they could, or that it was in fact landlord Paul Naidoo who locked the doors because he had not been paid R10 000 rent and saw it evaporating before his eyes. Nor of the outraged claims by market traders that their sales were not being recorded by the in-house sales system, but the money was disappearing into Garbade’s account.
All fabrications and lies, says Garbade. Everybody owed money from the market had been paid out in full. Not a cent was owed to anyone with a legitimate claim.
At this point I had a few questions of my own. Amongst all the “he said, she said” accusations flying back and forth, one thing I knew for certain was that Paul Naidoo, then owner of the old Nissan building in Umhlali and dealer principal of Ballito Autohaus BMW, had not been paid a cent of rent, which was why he had locked the doors. I’d checked with him again, the day before the interview: not one cent.
So, I asked Ms Garbade, what about the rent? Have you paid that?
Her demeanor slipped a bit. “He didn’t want the money,” she blurted. Then she changed tack: “It cost me R30 000 to get the place fixed up, water and electricity and air-conditioning, so I thought we were all square.”
When I said she couldn’t expect me to believe that Mr Naidoo would forgo the rent, she changed tack again: “He has never given us (herself or her lawyer) his bank account details. So we can’t pay him.”
Mmmm. I have in my possession a copy of an email from Mr Naidoo to Ms Giyapersad, dated January 12, 2016, supplying his bank details. So much for that.
Oh yes, one more thing. Ms Garbade told me and clients that a percentage of market proceeds went to her non-profit company, Furthering Education and Training, for “helping students” (though on the Internet the NPO is called Tertiary Education and Training). What percentage of profits went to this NPC, I asked? “One percent,” she replied.
I did not try to hide my incredulity. “You’re saying one percent for the NPO, so that means 99% for you?”
“Yes,” she said, straight-faced.
Next time someone tells me they’re running an event “with proceeds to charity,” I must remember to ask exactly how much.
In my book, one percent is false advertising. Not illegal, but ethically questionable.
Newspapers are not judge and jury. We just report what we think people ought to know, while stepping through a minefield of legalities. I would be a fool if I did not admit that we sometimes get stories wrong. We can be led up the garden path, fed half-truths, often lied to. But in our daily work we try to stick to known facts and verify as much as humanly possible. Even then, reports can be wrong and I am happy to make corrections and, when necessary, apologise.
Well, I told her at the end of the interview, I hadn’t heard anything to to change my position at all. I had heard nothing that disproved our report of the situation as it unfolded in December, and had only her unverified claims that she had been maligned and misunderstood by everybody. And, in the case of the landlord’s rent, an easily proven untruth.
I relate the above story to give some insight into our life running the local newspaper. I’ve had some scary letters from lawyers in the past, plus a few that have been downright amusing.
For example, in a completely unrelated matter last year, no names no pack drill, we reported an arrest. I received an indignant letter some nine months later (took them a long time to get indignant) from a lawyer stating: “Your report was designed in no uncertain manner to discredit our client in the eyes of the general public and to label her as a thief and a fraudster.” The demand was for R1 million in damages!
I recoiled a bit at first (after checking the petty cash and finding it lacking), but a little investigation revealed something few people knew about this upstanding member of the community whose name we had so callously and maliciously besmirched. She had half a dozen previous convictions for . . . fraud and theft.
We suggested the lawyer go fly a kite.
It’s a funny old world, isn’t it!

* * *

Mary had a little pig,
She kept it fat and plastered;
And when the price of pork went up,
She shot the little bastard.