LIEZEL DAVID ATTORNEY, CONVEYANCER AND NOTARY PUBLIC. 13 WOLFGANG AVENUE TEL: +27 11728-1139 NORWOOD 2192 FAX: 0866 167 597 POBOX 2893 MOBILE: 082 890 1376 HOUGHTON, 2041 E-MAIL: liezeldavid@telkomsa.net Company: Daily Maverick Attention; Pauli van Wyk E-mail: pauli@dailymaverick.co.za From: Liezel David Pages: 4 Date: 28 November 2017 Subject: Mr. Jonas Makwakwa CONFIDENTIALITY NOTE: This letter contains confidential information intended only for the person/s to whom it is addressed. Any other recipient is not entitled to read the rest of this letter or disclose its contents to any person, or take copies, and is requested to notify us immediately by fax or telephone at the numbers listed above and we will reimburse the costs for doing so. Dear Ms. Van Wyk act on behalf of Mr. Jonas Makwakwa (my client). I have been furnished with with a copy of an email addressed by you to my client on Monday 27 November 2017 at 1:36PM. I hold instructions to respond to your email on my client’s behalf, as set out in this letter. A number of issues fall to be addressed. One of the paragraphs in your email under reply reads as follows: “According to South African law, Scorpio may not have access to a person’s bank accounts without their approval. Based on legal advice we will write about the matter because of the overriding public interest and the position you hold in a crucial state institution.”On behalf of my client, I ask you to reconsider your position in this regard, for a number of reasor Firstly, “public interest” is not the same thing as of interest 10 the public”. You have written, and published on Daily Maverick, a number of previous pieces about my client, most recently ‘on 31 October 2017 and 23 November 2017, That there is interest in the subject matter of your stories is not sufficient to bring the matter within the “public interest”, requiring public outrage or the education of the public so as to, for instance, influence their voting power or inform them of misbehaviour of an official elected by them. There are accepted legal procedures to deal with any perceived wrongdoing on the part of ordinary persons and employees, and these should be utilised where they are available, My client is neither a politician, nor a political appointee for a set term of office. My client is an employee of the South African Revenue Service (SARS), and has been an employee of SARS for over 20 years. In these circumstances, there are adequate avenues and legal processes available to hold persons such as my client to account for any alleged or perceived impropriety, and writing about such things publicly is unnecessary, and serves to undermine such avenues and processes and does not advance the public interest. Indeed, to the extent that it may infringe a person’s rights or improperly influence other processes, it may well be contrary to the public interest. Secondly, as a committed SARS employee, my client is obliged to act in the best interests of SARS and to respect the processes and procedures adopted and utilised by SARS as his employer. To this end, my client has not spoken publicly, out of respect for the investigative and disciplinary process undertaken by SARS and other professionals retained by SARS for this purpose, over the last year or so, As a result of this process, my client has been cleared of wrongdoing and is now back at work. Both my client and SARS respect and accept the process itself and the outcome. My client asks that you do the same. Mere disagreement with the outcome of a process that you were not a part of, which has not been set aside, is insufficient to move the matier into the realm of public interes is likely to serve no purpose other than to defame my client and damage his reputation even more than you have already done to date. My client asks that you please cease and desist from doing so further. Thirdly, in keeping with what has been set out above, my client is obliged to act in the best interests of his employer, SARS. In addition to respecting the process undertaken by SARS, this also includes not commenting publicly on matters involving SARS, and permitting SARS to comment on such matters officially, should it choose to do so. In addition, my client declines to engage with you on any matter that has been the subject of due process at the instance of SARS, or which is or has been under investigation by the Office of the Public Protector and the Directorate for Priority Criminal Investigation, including the illegal disclosure of information such as my client's personal bank statements On the subject of the illegally obtained bank statements, I note that you acknowledge that you have my client's bank statements in your possession, that you are aware of the fact that it is unlawful for you to be in possession of them and that, having that knowledge, you have shared the contents thereof with at least one other person, being a “professional, skilled in the field ofJaw and auditing”. Further, you intend to write about the contents thereof on a widely read public forum, with the intention of damaging my client's reputation in the eyes of the publie at large. Trecord that my client has not consented to you acquiring or being in possession of his bank statements, and does not give his consent now, Whilst my client is mindful that you are unlikely to disclose the source from whom you unlawfully obtained his bank statements, he nevertheless does not consent to you, or any other party obtaining possession through you, being in possession of his bank statements or the information contained therein To this end, my client requires you to undertake not to distribute his bank statements or the information contained therein any further, not to write about same, to destroy any hard copies that you may have and delete any digital copies that you may have, and to ensure that all persons having obtained possession through you do the same. Please confirm by return correspondence as soon as you have done so. Should you fail to do so, my client reserves the right to take such further action as he may consider to be appropriate to prevent such illegal use of his personal and confidential information. The Code of ethics and conduct for South African print and online media (the Code) is of relevance. Clause 1.4 of Chapter | thereof states that: “News should be obtained legally, honestly and fairly, unless public interest dictates otherwise.” In addition, clause 2.1 provides that: “The media shall not allow commercial, political, personal or other non-professional considerations to influence or slant reporting, By your own admission, my client’s information was not obtained legally, honestly and fairly, and as has already been set out, there is no legitimate public interest here, and if there is, itis not sufficient to justify a departure from the Code. There are clearly other avenues by which any perceived wrongful conduct on the part of my client could be addressed legally, by the appropriate authorities, without the need to break the law. Indeed, certain of these avenues have been followed to conclusion already and others are still underway. There is no public interest justification for you to attempt to deal with issues publicly, outside of such legal avenues. To do so would clearly be as a result of commercial, political, personal or other non= professional considerations. In the circumstances, 1 wish to make it clear that my client will not be engaging in correspondence with you directly, nor will he be answering any questions posed by you or commenting on any of the statements made in your email under reply at all. Please note that any failure to comment on any statement or allegation, or to answer any question is not to be seen as an admission of the correctness or otherwise of such statement or allegation, nor is it to be construed as an inability to answer such question. My client expressly reserves the right to address any allegations made against him at any time, should he deem it appropriate to do $0.Please do not address further correspondence to my client directly, as he will not be responding at all, Please address any further correspondence intended for my client to me, at the details set out on this letterhead. Yours Faithfully ig