Herman Mashaba heads to court in defamation case against predecessor Parks Tau
Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba will today head to court to force his predecessor, Parks Tau, to apologise for accusing him of being a bigoted sexist who is racist and wishes he is not black. “It is so outrageous and ironical to suggest that I do not want to be considered black when I decided to name my company Black Like Me,” Mashaba states in an affidavit filed at the Johannesburg high court. But Tau is opposing Mashaba’s defamation case against him, on the grounds that he was reacting to public comments made by the mayor. The events that led to Mashaba’s case against Tau occurred just after the 2016 municipal elections when the DA and ANC were involved in a dead heat in the metros of Johannesburg, Tshwane, Ekurhuleni and Nelson Mandela Bay. On August 22 2016, the inaugural council meeting of the City of Johannesburg was held in which a speaker and a mayor were supposed to be elected. During that meeting, ANC councillor Nonhlanhla Mthembu collapsed and died.
At her funeral...
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