Political strategist Brutus Malada has described the approach that political analyst Prince Mashele took in writing a book about the ActionSA leader, Herman Mashaba, as academic thuggery.
This follows reports that Mashaba gave Mashele a R12.5 million bribe to write the book titled The Outsider – The Authorised Biography.
Malada says what is being reported about Mashaba and Mashele raises some ethical issues.
“Prince owed the public to disclose his relationship with Mashaba, as well as his involvement in ActionSA. Fred Khumalo called for what it is, that Prince is embedded. So, this leads to the fourth point that I wanted to make, which is about hypocrisy. You cannot criticise other intellectuals about them being in the pockets of politicians, you go and get money to do a book which is supposed to be independent and then you don’t disclose about it,” charges Malada.
Meanwhile, ActionSA National Chairperson, Michael Beaumont, has come to Mashaba’s defence.
“It was actually commissioned when Herman Mashaba was the mayor of the City of Johannesburg. It involved a deep three-year research project into the recesses of Herman Mashaba’s life and that required the financing of around R12.5 million for that research project to be concluded. The initial understanding with Mashele was he will raise that money privately, but when it was realised that money could not be raised privately, Herman Mashaba offered to put up the initial capital for the project to begin,” explains Beaumont.
More details in the report below:
