Peter Bruce is quite right to dismiss Naspers’ attempt to wash its hands of Multichoice’s payments to the Guptas (Sunday Times, December 3). For a company that by its own admission helped the apartheid government justify its policies, to downplay these recent events underlines that it has learnt nothing about business’s culpability in supporting rogue political regimes. Further, Naspers CEO Bob van Dijk’s comment that they "own more than 100 companies" so can’t be expected to monitor them all, is factually misleading. Yes, they do own hundreds — now, after reinvesting Tencent profit. But back in 2012 they didn’t, and Multichoice was one of their flagships. Upon which board, as Bruce also notes, Van Dijk still sits. Koos Bekker’s same-day response worsens the situation. He claims that in 2012 Multichoice couldn’t have known how the Gupta-Zuma relationship would play out. But they knew enough to know the Guptas could make their competition problems vanish. Is Bekker saying that Multic...
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