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INVESTMENT AUCTION

AN ALLEGEDLY bogus news channel that has possibly ruined the careers of scores of journalists does not have a broadcast licence and will not be allowed to go live without it.

This was confirmed yesterday by the Independent Communications Au-thority of SA (Icasa).

The news comes as Mzwanele Manyi’s newspaper, AfroVoice, which was formerly the Gupta-owned New Age, is undergoing liquidation, pla-cing dozens of journalists and other staff in limbo.

Channon Merricks, who refers to himself as the managing director of Vila Kasi Holdings, which supposedly owns the channel, maintained that Vila Kasi will launch on the first day of next month – supposedly on DStv.

Yesterday The Star reported that roughly 90 employees and three in-dependent contractors had claimed that Merricks allegedly duped them into joining his “scam” channel.

The three contractors – Blue In-dian Pictures, Mackay Communi-cations and Tebogo Rametse – said they were collectively owed well over R500 000.

Merricks refused to answer re-peated questions about whether he had received or even applied for a

broadcasting licence from Icasa.Answering only through text mes-

sages, Merricks said people should wait for the launch of his channel early next month and invited the Sat-urday Star to attend the opening.

On the non-payment of employ-ees and contractors, Merricks wrote: “Employees will be paid before the launch and they will be at work for the launch of the first independent, black-owned media house, Vila Kasi, registered in 2015.”

However, Icasa spokesperson Paseka Maleka dismissed Merricks’s statement, saying: “In terms of the

law, no one is allowed to provide a broadcasting service without a broad-casting service licence issued by Icasa in terms of the Electronic Communi-cations Act. Icasa is therefore not aware of any launch of any new broadcasting service in the name of Vila Kasi.”

Merricks allegedly conned work-ers and contractors by telling them he had been awarded a new channel on the MultiChoice’s DStv platform to run a 24-hour news and entertain-ment channel.

Marietjie Groenewald, Multi-Choice’s spokesperson, said on Thurs-

day that the company is yet to an-nounce a winning bidder for its new current affairs channel.

Yesterday, Groenewald said Multi-Choice would apply to Icasa to au-thorise the new channel once it was announced.

Meanwhile, a document from Afro Tone Media Holdings, signed by its chairperson, Manyi, has confirmed that Afro Voice newspaper had “no other alternative but to commence with liquidation proceedings”.

Manyi, in the note dated July 12, seen by the Saturday Star, cited a “substantial decline in government and commercial advertising”, as well as “no sustainable prospects” for the financial rescue of the paper.

The Saturday Star is privy to an employees’ WhatsApp group chat at Afro Voice on which journalists have raised the legality of Manyi’s pro-cesses in closing the paper, which was provisionally announced last month.

Aubrey Shabalala, general secre-tary of the Communications Workers’ Union, which speaks on behalf of the affected Afro Voice staff, said this week that the union would ensure workers received a fair deal.

Cavanagh and Richards Attorneys confirmed it was representing Afro Voice in the liquidation, but declined to comment further.

@khayakoko88

THE COMMISSION of inquiry appointed to probe Sandton’s Grayston Drive pedestrian bridge collapse has completed hearing oral evidence and now awaits the submission of closing arguments, the Labour Department said yesterday.

“The commission now awaits the submission of writ-

ten heads of arguments by legal representatives by Au-gust 14. This will be followed by written responses to the heads of argument, which are expected to be submitted by September 17,’’ the depart-ment said.

The inquiry, chaired by Lennie Samuel, was marred

by delays and postponements since its first sitting in Febru-ary 2016.

Progress at the inquiry was slow, causing consterna-tion among those affected and public concern regarding ac-countability.

The section 32 inquiry was set up by the department fol-

lowing the collapse of the tem-porary bridge on October 14 2015 on Grayston Drive.

Two died and 19 others were injured.

The hearing was appointed by the department in terms of the Occupational Health and Safety Act to investigate instances of negligence and

non-compliance with legis-lation.

Witnesses included engin-eering experts, construction companies employees and health and safety officers.

Murray & Roberts was at the centre of the inquiry as the principal contractor. – Af-rican News Agency (ANA)

A lucrative job offer landed in Paul’s inbox for a contract administrator at Zenith Con-struction and Mining Crusher in Accra, Ghana.

The perks included a per-sonal driver, a 36-hour week, and when Paul (not his real name) asked if they could up the salary offer, they did, sub-stantially.

But soon requests for money came. He had to pay a courier fee of $180 (R2 387). Then they asked for a refundable fee of $1 000, which they said was just in case he failed to show up for the job, Paul paid.

Everything appeared legit-imate. “They even sent me a plane ticket. How did they get that? It was a KLM flight, busi-ness class,” says Paul.

Then there were also of-ficial-looking banking docu-ments he had to fill out and sign, and re-ceipts for the money he had paid.

Paul didn’t know it at the time, but he was being drawn into a new-look 419 scam, that is harder to spot and far more slick. Once these types of scams came written in capital letters and the poor command of English was glaring.

“In the past you could spot them a mile away,” says Briga-dier Piet Pieterse, section head of the Hawks Cyber Crime Unit.

“Now it is a quality ap-proach, they are much more professional.

“The English is perfect, and they use quality documents.”

The 419 scams or Advance Fee fraud have been around a long time. Before the internet, they arrived by fax. But still people fall for them.

Market research com-pany Columinate, recently published their latest annual digital banking report. They found that 22% of their re-spondents fell victim to these criminals over the past year.

They noted a couple of new scams that appeared this year.

Eight percent of users fell victim to the “you are a win-ner” scam, they discovered.

They found that 13% of users fell victim to the ad-vanced “Fee Loan”.

Another 4% were conned with the “request for help” e-mail fraud, which is an up-grade of the original 419 scam, where in return for help, riches are promised.

Interestingly, 6% of users admitted they were scammed by a traditional 419.

The marketing company based their research on the responses of more than 13 000 South African e-bankers.

Often those committing these crimes are members of sophisticated syndicates.

“You need to look at the unique characteristics associ-ated with this crime and this is

that it is border-less. This makes the investigative m e t h o d o l o g y extremely com-plex,” Pieterse said.

“But I think with the assist-ance of prosecu-

torial authorities and law en-forcement around the world, it is possible to track down these people.”

Pieterse said it was import-ant that victims report these crimes to the police. The 419 scamsters have been arrested in South Africa in the past.

Cyber investigator Eckhard Volker said one client lost R1 million in an Advanced Fee scam.

“The problem is that once your money has been taken it is difficult to get it back,” he said.

But identifying the perpe-trators, he said, was easy using standard forensic techniques.

When Paul was asked for $500 to open a bank account, he became suspicious.

“I phoned and I got an an-swering machine. I had ex-pected a switchboard.

“Thirty minutes later they called and said they really need the money to open the account.

“That was when I refused. By then it had cost me R30 000,” Paul said.

LETSHEGO Zulu planted the first of 100 trees on the slopes of Mount Kili-

manjaro in honour of her hus-band, Gugu, yesterday. Gugu Zulu died in an attempt to sum-mit Africa’s highest peak as part of the annual Trek4Man-dela initiative in 2016.

Yesterday, though, was not a day for mourning, she said but a day to remember him – a man whose life had touched so many other people.

“I look forward to coming here with my grandchildren to show them these trees,” she said, “and to tell them how we planted them.”

Letshego was accompanied by their three-year-old daugh-ter, Lelethu, Gugu’s mother Puleng Zulu and her mother Kgomolemo Moshoeu.

She was also joined by mem-bers of the Trek4Mandela cen-tenary expedition who will

start their bid tomorrow to summit Kilimanjaro by Man-dela’s birthday on Wednesday.

“What an amazing way to honour my late husband; let’s celebrate with a smile, this is the day the Lord has made,” she said.

Puleng Zulu was overcome as she packed down the rich red soil around the indigenous sapling she was planing near the waterline of the pictur-

esque Karanga Dam that has served the village since 1950.

Reciting poems of praise in his honour, speaking to him through the tree; she said: “I wish you were here to see what I’m doing. Your dad’s not here so I have to do it on my own.” She then bent and kissed one of the leaves and stood up.

Sarah Scott, the South Afri-can leader of the Kilimanjaro Project, explained that Trees-

4Gugu would be part of the 1 000 trees for Madiba which in turn forms an integral part of a broader programme to plant a million trees over the next 10 years in the foothills of Kilimanjaro.

“A million trees is not enough… but I hope that it will create rainfall… we call this initiative tuje pamodja, Swahili for together we can be the change…”

Tree of life planted to honour Gugu

Beware of new, slick 419 scams, expert warns

Closing arguments to start for Grayston bridge inquiry

Vila Kasi news channel is not licensed for broadcast – Icasa

SHAUN SMILLIE

+1313 13 13 13 13

LAST NIGHT’S DRAW

KHAYA KOKOKHAYA.KOKO@INL.CO.ZA

Rally driver Gugu Zulu’s mother Puleng Zulu cries as she speaks to her son while planting a tree in his memory. INSET: His widow Letshego plants the first of 100 trees in Gugu’s memory in the foothills of Kilimanjaro yesterday. PICTURES: KEVIN RITCHIE

Paramedics try to free passengers trapped in a taxi after a bridge collapsed on the M1 highway near a busy off-ramp leading to Sandton in 2015.

PICTURE: REUTERS

The Nelson Mandela memorial bench on the banks of the Katanga Dam. Gugu’s trees form part of the 1 000 trees for Madiba Project.

KEVIN RITCHIE

419 scams have been around for a

long time.

Widow plants first of 100 saplings on slopes of Kilimanjaro

Channon Merricks PICTURE: TIMOTHY BERNARD/AFRICAN NEWS AGENCY(ANA)