Independent stops paying Sapa - report

Johannesburg - The Independent media group has stopped paying its fees to the SA Press Association (Sapa), Grubstreet reported on Friday.

Quoting two unnamed sources, the media blog reported on BizNews.com that Independent, a funding member of Sapa, had not paid its fees for February and March.

It reportedly owed Sapa between R600 000 and R800 000 for the two months.

Independent Newspapers, now named Independent News and Media SA, was bought by Sekunjalo Media Consortium in August 2013.

Sekunjalo Investment Holdings chairman Iqbal Surve recently announced that African business leaders, including himself and Pan African Business Forum executive chairman Ladislas Agbesi, would launch the African News Agency (ANA), to replace Sapa, on March 1.

Sapa's board of directors - representing member groups Independent, Media24, and Caxton - decided on the news agency's closure in January, maintaining it could no longer sustain funding for the agency.

Media24 announced this week that its 24.com digital division, which houses News24, would also start its own agency called News24Wire.

Conflict of interest

Grubstreet reported that Independent Media's executive deputy chair Tony Howard refused to comment, maintaining that the media blog's writer had a conflict of interest in that her husband was employed by Media24 and would be playing a key role in its news agency project.

Grubstreet's reports on media industry news regularly carry prominent disclosure of the writer's relationship and place of work of her husband.

Sapa editor Mark van der Velden said on Friday: "Sapa management has, some time ago already, very clearly flagged to the board its concerns about capacity and funding to fulfil the instruction to keep the wire agency's services going, as normally as possible under the circumstance, until March 31.

"This latest reported turn of events is in the domain of the board, on which Independent Media is represented at a high level."

The 75-year-old Sapa news agency, a non-profit Section 21 organisation, will send out its last story at midnight on March 31.