Property developers Oasis Holdings lodged a complaint at the Press Ombudsman’s office about a column in Business Day, published on October 19, 2010, headlined Crumbling foundation of citizen participation and written by Rhoda Kadalie.

After Deputy Press Ombudsman Johan Retief considerately narrowed down the complaint by dismissing large parts of it, the following sentences remained under scrutiny:

- "In University Estate, where I (Kadalie) live, a historic villa dating back to the 1800s was destroyed by its owner (Oasis), aided and abetted by city officials despite residents’ legitimate appeals."

- "This house (4 Garrick Street) allegedly belongs to the same company (Oasis) and it violates every municipal regulation in the book".

The company added that the newspaper should have checked the "facts" prior to publication.

Kadalie, Retief said, had a right to her opinion. However, the Press Code states that opinions should take "fair account of all available facts which are material to the matter commented upon" (Article 4.3). He argued that it was one thing to voice an opinion, but quite another to present untruthful statements as facts.

He found that, with the evidence at his disposal, the statements about the historic villa and 4 Garrick Street were probably not true and therefore in breach of Art. 4.3.

Retief also found that the editor can be forgiven for not checking the statements due to the locality of the issue.

We were reprimanded for ignoring material facts that were readily available, as well as for portraying untruths as "facts"; we were also directed to publish a summary of this finding.

Source: Business Day