Piet Rampedi resigns from Independent Media, still insisting his decuplet story is accurate - statement

Piet Rampedi, the journalist at the helm of the infamous Tembisa 10 debacle, has officially resigned from his position as Pretoria News editor at Independent Media almost a year and a half after the story was first published. 

The story of Gosiame Sithole, a woman who was alleged to have given birth to 10 babies, made headlines throughout the country - and globally. As Sithole’s story garnered more public interest, it continued to make headlines for an entirely different reason — it appeared her decuplets never existed. 

Independent Media announced Rampedi’s resignation on Tuesday 31 January 2023. At the time of his departure, it was stated Rampedi still stands by the accuracy of the decuplet story.  

“Rampedi was the author of the Tembisa 10 — the disputed story of a woman who gave birth to a record ten babies – which to this day he insists was an accurate story,” the statement said. 

This is despite an investigation by Acting Public Protector Kholka Gcaleka in which the medical evidence presented showed Sithole did not birth 10 babies, nor was she ever pregnant with decuplets. 

Rampedi joined Independent Media’s team as head of its investigation unit in March 2019. In  the same year, he was appointed as deputy editor of the Sunday Independent. It was in January 2021 that Rampedi joined Pretoria News as editor — the same year he published the Tembisa 10 story. Prior to his work at Independent Media, Rampedi had over 20 years experience in both print and media organisations such as City Press, the SABC and The Star. 

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“Independent Media thanks Rampedi for his service and wishes him well in his future endeavours,” said Aziz Hartley, editor-in-chief of Independent Media, in a statement released on Tuesday 31 January. 

It was also announced that Kennedy Mudzuli, from Pretoria News, would be taking over from Rampedi as acting editor. 

Daily Maverick reached out to Rampedi for comment on his resignation but he did not respond immediately.

On 26 January, Rampedi joined a Twitter Space with former ANC member and spokesperson Carl Niehaus in a discussion about the state of the nation and Niehaus’s Radical Economic Transformation Movement (Retmo). 

Thanks to all who joined my #InMyCrosshairs Twitter Space last night, we presented the summarised Ten Point Plan of RETMO, & the editor of the Pretoria News, #PietRampedi, gave a brilliant analyses of the dire state of our nation.

Listen to the recording: https://t.co/g8WCBDTQfQ

— Carl Niehaus (@niehaus_carl) January 26, 2023

It is not known whether this move indicates that Rampedi will continue working with Retmo in the future. 

In another scandal that followed the decuplets saga, Independent Media has also been accused of fabricating an “attack” writer named ‘Jamie Roz’. Upon investigation, Daily Maverick — with the support of two digital forensic reports — established that the writer does not exist.

Independent Media’s chairperson is controversial businessman Iqbal Survé, who instituted several claims against various media outlets including Daily Maverick in 2022.

Survé has been embroiled in various other court cases, including against Nedbank, which started to shut down accounts linked to him and Sekunjalo Investment Holdings in 2020, while the Public Investment Corporation dragged another Survé-linked entity to court to recover overdue monies owed to the state-owned asset manager.

In June 2022, Survé’s Sekunjalo group won an interim interdict allowing it to keep the bank accounts of 44 company entities open.

Survé and the Sekunjalo group are due in the Equality Court again, to argue that Nedbank unfairly discriminated against the company’s holdings because it is a black-owned company. Nedbank is set to argue that it was within its rights to terminate the accounts, in light of the Mpati Commission report into alleged impropriety at the PIC. DM