Forensic review of donations received in 2016 for a specific initiative of the South African National Editors' Forum ("SANEF")
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Forensic review of donations received in 2016 for a
specific initiative of the South African National Editors’
Forum (“SANEF”)
Factual Findings Report
February 2019
1Review of donations received in 2016 for specific initiative of SANEF - Report Strictly Confidential Contents Contents ............................................................................................................ 1 Executive Summary ......................................................................................... 2 Detailed Report ................................................................................................. 3 Overview of the engagement ........................................................................... 3 Limitations of Scope ........................................................................................ 3 Background to the matter ............................................................................... 4 Claim 1: ......................................................................................................... 5 Claim 2: ......................................................................................................... 6 Details of our review ....................................................................................... 6 Validity of the spreadsheet ............................................................................ 7 Review of donors ........................................................................................... 7 Analysis of the flow of funds ......................................................................... 9 The conclusion................................................................................................. 9
Review of donations received in 2016 for specific initiative of SANEF - Report Strictly Confidential
Executive Summary
The South African National Editors’ Forum (“SANEF”) engaged Deloitte to perform a forensic
review relating to the veracity of the allegations that it had received funds from Bosasa
and/or Bosasa-linked entities/individuals. The funds alleged to have been received related
to a crowdfunding campaign established by Mr Adriaan Basson (“Mr Basson”), a council
member of SANEF, to provide financial support to the eight South African Broadcasting
Corporation journalists (“SABC 8”) who had been suspended by, then Chief Operating
Officer, Mr Hlaudi Motsoeneng.
Deloitte performed the review by assessing whether any funds received for the campaign
appear to have been received from a Bosasa-related entity or high-ranking Bosasa official.
Deloitte obtained a list of donors from Mr Basson. The list was downloaded from the
crowdfunding platform onto a spreadsheet. Deloitte reviewed the validity of the detailed
spreadsheet provided to us by Mr Basson and obtained an understanding of the flow of
funds to corroborate the evidence provided by Mr Basson as to the facts of the case.
Furthermore, Deloitte contacted other relevant stakeholders to test the comments made in
a TimesLive article published on 22 January 2019 and to obtain their input as to the validity
of the allegations.
Due to the nature of the forensic review, there are inherent limitations that were
unavoidable in the circumstances. These include that the data in the detailed spreadsheet
could not be independently confirmed by the external third party, and detailed email
forensic investigations of the Bosasa email server were not performed and/or whether any
parties connected to this campaign had received any cash payment, could not be verified.
However, based on the information obtained and corroborated from a variety of sources
and procedures, Deloitte found no evidence that any payment was made by Bosasa or
entity or persons related to Bosasa to the SABC 8 campaign in 2016.
2Review of donations received in 2016 for specific initiative of SANEF - Report Strictly Confidential
Detailed Report
Overview of the engagement
On 22 January 2019, TimesLive published an article (link to article is
https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2019-01-22-leaked-e-mail-did-bosasa-
donate-r100k-to-journo-fund/), which refers to an internal Bosasa email where reference is
made to the intention to make a payment to the “journalist fund”. The email suggests a
specific amount of R 100 000 be made to fund to support the journalists. SANEF performed
their own internal investigation of the matter but could not identify any evidence that such a
payment had been received. It was on this basis that SANEF approached Deloitte to perform
a forensic review to independently test whether any such payments had been made by Bosasa
to the fund or SANEF at the time.
Deloitte performed a number of procedures, deemed to be relevant, to assess whether funds
had actually been received from Bosasa to support the “SABC 8” journalists. In performing
this review Deloitte used the following approach to test the veracity of the allegations. These
procedures included:
Validating the information contained within the detailed spreadsheet provided by Mr
Basson;
Reviewing the donors to identify any specific associations with Bosasa entities;
Determining the flow of the funds to confirm the use of the funds; and
Making direct requests to Bosasa (individuals identified in the email correspondence
referred to in the media) to confirm whether such payments were made at the time.
The outcomes of these procedures, which formed the basis of the forensic review, provided
the factual findings as disclosed in the report.
Limitations of Scope
We do not express a legal opinion
Although the work performed incorporates our understanding of the law as it stands, we do
not express a legal opinion, but merely state the facts as they have come to our attention.
Any discussion of the relevant laws is intended solely to facilitate the determination of
applicable facts, which may be relevant to the interpretation and/or law; any interpretation
should be referred to your legal advisors.
3Review of donations received in 2016 for specific initiative of SANEF - Report Strictly Confidential
Our work did not constitute an audit
The work we performed in terms of this engagement did not constitute a statutory audit and
as such, we do not express any opinion in terms of International Standards on Auditing. Due
to the nature of the work, we cannot provide assurance that the procedures applied detected
all potential anomalies and/or irregularities.
Our work did not constitute a full forensic investigation
As per our Contract, the work performed was a review on the veracity of the allegations. The
work performed did not constitute a full forensic investigation based on the limitations with
respect to information available from third parties.
This report should not be distributed to any other party
Except where otherwise stated in our Contract, this report, in its draft or final form, is
addressed to you. Our report is provided solely for your use and benefit and only in connection
with the purpose as set out in our Contract. Other than provided by the Contract or unless
required by law, you shall not provide this report or letter, or a copy thereof, to any third
party or refer to us or our services without our prior written consent, which we may at our
discretion grant, withhold or grant subject to conditions. In no event, regardless of whether
consent has been provided, shall we assume any liability or responsibility to any third party
to which any report or letter is disclosed or otherwise made available.
We relied on the information received and reviewed
The report is based on the facts established from documents provided and/or information
obtained during the course of our consultations and meetings. Information and
documentation not received or reviewed at the time of compiling this report could not be
incorporated into this report. Should any further information be obtained, it may influence
our conclusions.
Background to the matter
Deloitte obtained the following background (from Mr Basson and other publically available
data) to the fund raising campaign in order to provide the necessary context to the allegations
and to focus the review.
On 19th July 2016, the SABC dismissed eight journalists (referred to as the “SABC 8”)
with immediate effect, because they had challenged a rule put in place by Mr Hlaudi
Motsoeneng (then Chief Operating Officer of the SABC), and spoke out about abuse
of media freedom. There was concern in the journalism community about the apparent
abuse of power and further that the SABC 8 would not be getting paid. Mr. Basson
shared this concern and decided to launch a crowdfunding campaign to raise funds in
order to assist the journalists to pay for their monthly expenses.
4Review of donations received in 2016 for specific initiative of SANEF - Report Strictly Confidential
The crowdfunding campaign was launched on an American funding platform at the
time known as “Generosity.com”. “Generosity.com” was purchased by “YouCaring” in
January 2018 and “YouCaring” was subsequently purchased by “GoFundMe” in April
2018. The campaign that was launched on the platform was called “Friends of the
SABC 8”. It was launched on 19 July 2016. Mr Basson publicised the campaign with a
“call to action” on media, including radio and social media platforms calling for
assistance from the public to donate to the cause. Although initiated by Mr Basson,
SANEF also supported the cause and encouraged people to donate.
To launch any campaign on “Generosity.com”, the initiator was required to elect to
have the campaign active for a specific period of time or until it reached a specific
figure. On achieving that time period or value, the campaign would close. Mr Basson
selected to have the campaign for a few days (based on the data, approximately one
week) but later extended it for two more days because of the number of donations
that were coming in. A donor has the ability, when donating funds, to remain
anonymous or allow their identity to be made public. The administrator of the
campaign, however, is able to download the details of all of the donors, which includes
their full details that were captured into the system and whether they elected to
remain anonymous or not.
After the campaign had ended, “Generosity.com” contacted Mr Willem de Klerk (“Mr
de Klerk”), the attorney nominated by Mr. Basson at the time the campaign was
registered, to ask if they could pay the funds into his Trust Account. The funds were
paid directly into the Trust Account. In addition, the Attorney Trust Account had also
received a small number of additional amounts for this campaign directly from
members of the public who had expressed reluctance to use the online portal. The
donated funds were collated and then divided by eight to be paid directly from the
Trust Account to the eight journalists.
The TimesLive article published on 22 January 2019, referred to an email written by Mr Angelo
Agrizzi to then chief accountant Mr Carlos Bonifacio, finance employee Mr Jacques van Zyl
and former chief financial officer Mr Andries van Tonder, which stated that “Bosasa will
contribute an amount of R100 000”. In addition to the email, there were further claims within
the article to confirm the existence of this email communication via other unnamed sources.
The claims have been summarised below.
Claim 1:
The first claim considers that in “Agrizzi’s e-mail – which was addressed to then chief
accountant Carlos Bonifacio, finance employee Jacques van Zyl and former chief financial
officer Andries van Tonder – he writes: “Strategically Andries VT has come up with a brilliant
idea to sponsor the journalist fund that was started to assist the SABC journalists who were
fired – Bosasa will contribute an amount of R100 000. I am not sure what the account details
are, I will forward them to you once I’ve found it – please once its processed for immediate
payment send me a copy thereof. If you are able to get the account details before me –
please proceed with the donation of R100 000. I know we are under pressure – trust me this
is probably going to be the best ROI [return on investment] we’ve ever had with donations”.
5Review of donations received in 2016 for specific initiative of SANEF - Report Strictly Confidential
This claim suggests that Mr Angelo Agrizzi sent an email to various internal staff members
requesting that a payment be made. Further, this claim appears to suggest that the payment
will be made via an Electronic Funds Transfer (“EFT”) to the fund and not through any other
means such as cash.
Claim 2:
The article further notes that “a senior source at Bosasa, now named African Global, said:
‘R100 000 had to be paid to assist the journalists. It was a good cause but the pressure was
unbearable as I had to return from sick leave to monitor and assist in releasing the money.
The money was eventually paid to the cause,” said the employee, who did not want to be
named because he had not been authorised to speak to the media’”.
This claim appears to confirm that a payment had been made and it needed to be released
supporting the first claim relating to an EFT payment.
Details of our review
In order to address the requirements above and assess the veracity of the allegations the
specific procedures performed by Deloitte included:
Obtaining an understanding of why the campaign had been initiated;
Obtaining an understanding of how funds were received from the crowdfunding
platform and paid to the Attorney Trust Account of Mr de Klerk;
Obtaining an understanding of how funds were paid to the “SABC 8” journalists
Reviewing the spreadsheet to determine the validity of the data contained therein;
Reviewing the underlying details to identify any direct links to Bosasa-named officials
or entities;
Validating any payments, which at the time of the campaign, would have exceeded
the specified amount of R 100 000, individually or collectively;
Contacting two of the individuals referred to as participants to the Bosasa email to
attempt to confirm the details regarding the payment;
Reviewing the Attorney Trust Account, SANEF and Mr Basson’s personal bank
statements for the specific period in 2016 during which the campaign was active, to
test for any payments potentially linked with Bosasa or Bosasa officials;
Reviewing written statements from Mr Basson as well as some of the eight journalists,
who were beneficiaries of the crowdfunding campaign in 2016.
Other sub-procedures were performed in order to support the above-identified procedures.
The forensic review performed by Deloitte has been documented below under three
categories. These include validating the spreadsheet, reviewing the donors’ details on the
spreadsheet and analysing the flow of funds. The objective of each of the processes is to test
the veracity of the allegations.
6Review of donations received in 2016 for specific initiative of SANEF - Report Strictly Confidential
Validity of the spreadsheet
Mr Basson provided Deloitte with an affidavit which stated, amongst other matters, that he
launched the campaign in July 2016 to raise funds for the SABC 8 journalists. As part of the
process, Mr Basson downloaded a spreadsheet from the online campaign platform, which
contained the details of the various donors. Deloitte inspected the spreadsheet as provided
by Mr Basson. The spreadsheet contained a list of all the donors who had contributed to the
campaign. For each donor, it included the name, email address, amount, time of donation,
and whether the donor had elected to remain anonymous. Deloitte contacted the
“GoFundMe” legal department who confirmed that after the mergers and acquisitions that
took place between “Generosity.com” and “YouCaring” the information relating to any
campaign on the “Generosity.com” platform was not carried over. As “Genorosity.com” no
longer existed, Deloitte would not be able to obtain the required information.
Deloitte reviewed the document properties/ metadata for the spreadsheet and confirmed
that the spreadsheet had been created on the date the campaign ended in July 2016. The
date the file was modified, was quite recent, as the document had recently been saved and
the save functionality in Microsoft Excel updates the modified date. As we were unable to
verify independently the details on the spreadsheet, we relied on the information presented
there, but performed additional procedures as set out in this report.
Other than the donors listed in the spreadsheet, five additional deposits were made directly
into the Attorney Trust Account of Mr de Klerk.
Review of donors
Deloitte reviewed the list of donors and their contribution amounts. The top three donations
were $ 10 000, $ 3 000 and $ 1 000 and all three donors requested to remain anonymous.
The following statistics can be drawn from the data in the spreadsheet:
There were 395 donors who contributed directly to the campaign on “Generosity.com”
and five additional donors contributed directly into the Attorney Trust Account;
The largest amount donated was via the online platform for an amount of $ 10 000
and the largest direct deposit to the Attorney Trust Account was R 3 000 from an
unnamed donor;
Outside of the top three the average donation on the platform was $ 33.08 ranging
from $ 2 to $ 500;
There were two instances of a donor contributing twice to the fund. These two donors
contributed a total of $ 150 and $ 80, respectively;
The total sum of direct donations into the Attorney Trust Account was R 6 350;
The total amount donated on the platform was $ 26 946;
7Review of donations received in 2016 for specific initiative of SANEF - Report Strictly Confidential
The date stamps of the donations reflect the timeframe that the campaign was active
on the website, which was corroborated by Mr Basson and other public information
around the similar date;
32.9% of the donors elected to remain anonymous with an average donation of
$141.35 ($ 34.42 if we remove the top three contributors who all elected to remain
anonymous);
67.1% of donors elected to be visible with their average donation of $ 32.43; and
The exchange rate at the time the campaign was concluded on 23 July 2016 was
R 14.293605 / $.
Deloitte also performed an analysis on the top fifteen contributors to confirm if there were
any direct links with Bosasa and its group of entities. This analysis included a single indirect
link analysis. A single indirect link analysis is where an individual is a director of company X
(Pty) Ltd and one of the other directors of company X (Pty) Ltd is a director of a Bosasa-
linked entity. Based on the work performed, no direct links or single indirect links were
identified.
Based on the above information, it would appear that only one donation exceeds the R
100 000 value as described in the email. This individual does not appear to have any direct
links to Bosasa. Further, to test whether the email address is potentially fictitious, we
confirmed that the email domain had been registered more than 20 years ago. This is
consistent with the identity of the individual being valid.
Deloitte further reviewed the bank accounts of Mr Basson at the time of the campaign and
did not identify any transactions that are potentially linked with Bosasa. Further, Deloitte
reviewed the bank statements of SANEF for the period around the campaign. Deloitte did not
identify any funds relating to the campaign having been received into the bank accounts of
SANEF. Deloitte was also provided with affidavits from seven of the eight journalists (SABC
8) to confirm that they did not receive funds directly from Bosasa during that time in which
the campaign was held. We were made to understand that one of the eight journalists had
since passed away.
In order to confirm the validity of the email, Deloitte contacted Mr Angelo Agrizzi and Mr
Jacques van Zyl who are two of the named parties in the email. One party stated they were
unable to assist as they did not know what payment Deloitte was referring to. The other party
provided written confirmation that they were not aware of the actual email or payment taking
place. In addition, the second party confirmed that at most, an informal discussion was held
but it was agreed that it would not be a good idea to make the payment and that no payment
was released.
Based on the information provided, we found no evidence that the fund received an amount
of R 100 000 from a Bosasa-linked entity. This conclusion is based on the review of the
detailed spreadsheet, the bank statements for the Attorney Trust Account, SANEF and Mr
Basson, as well as the responses from the two individuals named in the TimesLive article as
being participants to the email communication where the R 100 000 donation was suggested.
8Review of donations received in 2016 for specific initiative of SANEF - Report Strictly Confidential
Analysis of the flow of funds
Although the analysis on the flow of funds will not directly confirm whether funds were
received by the campaign from Bosasa or a Bosasa-linked entity, it should provide context or
evidence supporting or refuting the evidence provided by Messrs Basson and de Klerk.
Therefore an analysis of the flow of funds was performed.
The downloaded spreadsheet indicated that funds to the value of $ 26 946 were received
from donors, which amount was subsequently requested to be paid into the Attorney Trust
Account of Mr de Klerk. An email notification was sent by Indiegogo, the holding company of
“Generosity.com” to confirm that the amount would be paid less the online service provider’s
fees for the campaign facility and commissions, which is 3% of the total amount raised, 0.30
US cents per donation and $ 25 to make an international wire transfer. Based on these details
and the fact that the payment was made in August 2016, the amount received into the trust
account was expected to be $ 25 985.05 (R 345 454.08). Deloitte inspected the bank
statement of the Attorney Trust Account and confirmed an amount of R 345 454.08 had been
received from “Generosity.com”.
Deloitte inspected the bank statement of the Attorney Trust Account for the period and
identified five other deposits relating to the SABC 8. The total sum of these payments was
R 6 350. During the process of inspecting the bank statements, we enquired about other
significant receipts to test whether these were potentially linked to Bosasa. For all such
amounts identified, Mr de Klerk provided supporting documentation for the legal matters
(unrelated to the subject of this review) to which they related.
Therefore, this resulted in a total amount of R 351 804.08 (R 345 454.08 + R 6 350.00) being
available for distribution to the SABC 8. We noted eight individual transfers out of the Attorney
Trust Account to the value of R 43 975.51. The transaction details reflect the names of the
eight journalists.
The conclusion
Based on the work performed by Deloitte, it appears that the facts presented to us confirm
that the crowdfunding campaign was initiated to support the eight journalists referred to as
the SABC 8. We found no evidence that an amount of R 100 000 (or any other amount) was
paid by Bosasa to either the fund, SANEF or Mr Basson, during the period that the fund was
operated.
It should be noted that Deloitte performed this forensic review based on its knowledge and
understanding of the facts presented to it. This was supported by the evidence obtained from
a variety of sources. There are however inherent limitations within this review such as
independently obtaining the donor spreadsheet, performing an investigation over the validity
of emails of Bosasa and identifying physical cash payments to third parties. Therefore, should
any additional information and documentation, not received or reviewed at the time of
compiling this report, become known, this may influence our conclusions. Deloitte reserves
the right to consider the impact of any such information and documentation on our findings
and report.
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