Efforts to dissociate the newspaper from Gupta links failed, court said



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Durban – The negative publicity badociated with the Gupta family and former president Jacob Zuma is what spelled the death knell of the AfroVoice newspaper.

This is the submission of Mzwanele Manyi, owner of the newspaper formerly known as The New Age, in an urgent demand for liquidation on Monday.

Manyi and five other directors of his company asked the Pretoria High Court to urgently liquidate their subsidiary TNA Media, publisher of AfroVoice, stating that she could no longer be saved .

In his affidavit, Manyi said AfroVoice was commercially insolvent and "there is no prospect for the rescue of the company in the current circumstances."

"Due to the disastrous financial situation (of the company), he is currently conducting business in insolvent circumstances and therefore the directors have the legal obligation to cease all transactions and to act in the best interests of all stakeholders, including the mbad of creditors, its employees and shareholders, "said Mr. Manyi

. end of last month, forcing directors to suddenly close the paper.

Between February and June, the newspaper's revenues went from more than 5.1 million rand to "only 255 million rand," according to Manyi

. The Northwestern and Free State provincial governments also canceled their bulk subscriptions, while Westdawn Investments, a troubled Gupta company, did not renew its advertising.

The Koornfontein mine, also owned by Gupta and undergoing commercial salvage, was withdrawn from a sponsorship deal that made one million rand a month.

Manyi now wants a liquidator to be named

The property will be sold in the interest of the creditors.

"The applicants decided to address this honorable court because of the urgency of the creditors included the AFP News Agency, Allied Publishing, Bidvest Steiner, Gallo Images, the newspapers Independent, Vodacom, SABC, SizweNtsalubaGobodo and Sars.

New Age of Guptas at the end of last year.The newspaper was known as a spokesman for the controversial family and Zuma.

It was already operating with a monthly loss of almost 4.8 million rand when the Guptas handed it over to Manyi through a R450m supplier financing agreement, he believed that AgroVoice "could regain market confidence and in doing so, give him the opportunity to recover financially and become financially profitable again. "

He said that he had every reason to believe that the document would be" divorce "itself from the saga of capture State and Gupta family. "Despite the ef the applicant's efforts to remove the respondent from his past, the persistent perceptions that the (newspaper) was still linked to his former owners have unfortunately remained "

. (The New Age) badociation with the Gupta family's business activities through Oakbay Investments has created a negative perception.

"Due to the negative publicity of the past three years, relating to the historical relationship between the Gupta family and former president Jacob Zuma, and the various commercial operations of the Gupta family, the commercial operations of the (paper )

The Communications Workers Union planned to join the liquidation hearing before the courts in the interest of AfroVoice employees, said its Secretary General Aubrey Tshabalala

"We are trying to make the most of this process," he said yesterday: "Under normal circumstances, when you take a worker out, there are packages, I do not want to spoil the cake, but these are the things that we must go and argue before the judge. "4

MERCURY

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