The last page of the scanned copy of the budget given to parliament, in response to all those pesky questions sent to Mr Minister (that would be you Paul) see above. PM did not feel the need to share it in the last post as it did not seem to contain anything new. Just the people who benefited, or were involved with the project and in what capacity they were involved.
But then PM changed PM’s mind. You know why Panga People, it because the M&G did not publish Matthew Blackmans last report ( the one PM linked in the last post , in the end it was published by Artthrob).
Why did they not publish it, PM asked Aunty Panga? It was a natural follow-up to this report by Matthew Blackman published by the M&G on the 2nd of April .
PM found this as fishy smelling as Kalkbay on a humid day. Then PM remembered seeing that the 2nd April report had the below, tagged onto the bottom added by the M&G.
“A previous version of this story unfairly drew a connection between expenditure on marketing and social media and the role of head of public relations. The M&G is looking into where these funds were in fact allocated.”
Public Relations is Victor Dlamini. So the M&G did not want to tarnish Mr Dlamini with what they termed as “unfair connections” conveyed by Mr Blackman, in the previous version of the 2nd of April report. Fair enough. But then PM started to wonder about Victor Dlamini .
Maybe the M&G did not what to publish the latest report because it quotes Victor Dlamini. PM quotes from this report by Matthew Blackman
“Mr Victor Dlamini responds to the departments concerns by stating that he will ‘avail himself to answer questions about concerns raised to the DAC’. Mr Dlamini is also noted as stating that: ‘Twitter YouTube, Facebook and Flikr will form part of the marketing campaign and strategy.’ However, when Dlamini was asked several weeks ago about how the R360 000 earmarked in the budget for ‘social media engagement’ was spent he stated: ‘I had nothing to do with it’.”
So who is Victor Dlamini ? was he just an innocent victim , much like the artists, or is there more to this story? The DAC Minutes clearly mention him, yet he says the company Chillibush communications had nothing to do with it. So was he working in his personal capacity ? Why did the M&G steer away from mentioning his involvement ? Why did The City Press steer away from mentioning his name in the article they ran? See here. Now, Victor is not very happy with Mr Blackman as the below screen shot from his Twitter account shows. It seems he feels attacked. Fair enough but why?
Who is Victor Dlamini? He is a political commentator and former journalist,okay so maybe that’s why the newspapers on not keen to mention his name and the Venice controversy in one sentence. He is the Chairman of Chillibush Communications, and PM quotes from the website Victor Dlamini ” who has a distinguished career in the field of corporate communication and reputation management”.
He is also the director of Dlamini Weil Communications, that is what it says on his Linkedin profile. But on the above twitter stream he says Chillibush communications had nothing to do with it. but here it’s mentioned quite clearly that he did, and PM quotes
“Victor Dlamini, head of Chillibush Communications, involved in the organisation of the exhibition since 2009, says that Goniwe has had complete curatorial independence and approached a number of artists to participate, such as Marlene Dumas and Nicholas Hlobo.”
So the bottom line is the Victor has been caught out telling so many porky pies (lies). His involvement must run so much deeper in this scandal than just a guy hired to do public relations for the VB who got caught up with Monna and the bad kids on the block.
Who introduced Monna to Mr Minister ? Victor seems to have been involved in this project as long as Monna, as the above quote would attest.
So why are the newspapers not mentioning his name and investigating his involvement? Is he a very useful source, on bigger stories? Is it because he was a respected journalist and they don’t want to make life difficult for one of their own?
He is quoted in plenty of places online
Dlamini saying:“Conflicts of interest happen everywhere in the world – it is how you manage them.” He said any potential conflict of interest was addressed through the appointment of [Thembinkosi] Goniwe, who looked far and wide for representative artists.”
Well Victor, it looks to PM that you have not managed reputations very well, and you have seemed to leave a large question mark next to your conflict of interests. If you where working in your private capacity arranging the public relations and acting as spokesperson for Monna, it certainly would be unfair to take Chillibush communications name through the dirt. Since you were involved in the project from 2009 ( you said it) , one has to ask in what capacity where you working on this project since 2009 ? and how did you benefit from the R10 Million ? It only fair that you should get paid for the work you did on the project but what exactly did you do? Do you and Monna have any other projects on the go? or do you share any other business interests ? PM finds this all very suspect, it smells bad, and where there is stink there is rot. Maybe you should go and join Monna in the naughty corner, he is lonely standing there all by himself. If you are innocent of all wrong doing for goodness sake, just answer the questions ,tell the truth – the whole truth. Aunty Panga knows you will feel better if you just get all this nonsense off your chest. PM respects you as a journalist and would like to see your name cleared.
Panga Management 