Gov wants a mouthpiece? Never!

For more:

• Mail & Guardian: Controversy over government link in Independent Group deal... OK, so the Sekunjalo Independent Media Consortium aiming to buy Independent has come out fighting and Sekunjalo head Iqbal Survé this week laughed off concerns that he could be creating a powerful pro-government mouthpiece.

  The problem, of course, is that we, the public, have had The New Age saga, alleged bias, government adspend in the newspaper, and its circulation claims that Anton Harber reckons are of dubious credibility, so forgive us if we are somewhat cynical regarding the aims behind the Independent deal.

  As Anton Harber says in his column presently on bizcommunity.com, it's time to come clean, Dr Survé.

  The latter, following the publication of Harber's column this week, called Harber to say that "he will make public the members of his consortium when he is able to in terms of a confidentiality agreement. 'And you will like it very much, I am sure of that.'"

  All right, let's wait and see... I suppose one can hope that no relatives or friends of SA's "First Family" will be involved.