News24 reports that the so-called SABC 8 has outright rejected claims that they benefited from a R100,000 donation by state capture-implicated Bosasa to cover their living expenses while suspended by Hlaudi Motsoeneng, COO at the SA Broadcasting Corporation (SABC).  

"The SABC 8 has learnt with dismay and disgust, the attempts to associate us with the Bosasa affair," the remaining journalists said in a statement.  This was in response to a report by Times Live on Tuesday stating that Bosasa allegedly donated R100,000 toward a crowd funding campaign to assist the SABC 8 journalists in 2016.  This reportedly emerged in an email in which a senior Bosasa official instructed other officials to make the payment.  At the time, the journalists had been suspended by the SABC with no pay for speaking out against censorship of protest footage.  "We have never had any dealings with Bosasa collectively or individually.  We do not know who the donors were in the crowd funding initiative; some identified themselves and some remained anonymous.  After the reinstatement of some of us, we decided to share some of the money with people who had causes similar to ours,” the SABC 8 stated.  Bosasa, now known as African Global, would not comment.

• Read the original of this report in full at News24
• Read the Times Live report referred to above here

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