The Hefer commission owes its existence to Ranjeni Munusamy. But Andrew Donaldson is less than impressed with his former colleague

Rather Chummy Much has been made of the friendly relationship between Ranjeni Munusamy and the two main figures in the spy allegation drama - Mac Maharaj, above, and Mo Shaik, below

She has played the commission like a seasoned trouper. If she's given herself a role in this drama, then it is that of femme fatale

Some of the stuff is so hagiographic that it is like swimming in porridge - heavy going, but in a comforting, warm way Munusamy was a 'supernova journalist', her five-year career at the Sunday Times 'meteoric', and 'hardly a week went by without her byline on the front page'

On Tuesday this week, former Sunday Times journalist Ranjeni Munusamy found a "deadly scorpion" on the kitchen table in her Illovo, Johannesburg flat. She trapped the creature in a mayonnaise bottle, The Star reported, and her lawyers then sent it to a laboratory where - in a prosaic turn of events - it was identified as poisonous.

But what scorpion isn't? By definition, they all have a venomous sting in the tail.

The newspaper also informed its readers that, on Monday, Munusamy answered her doorbell to find a policeman who claimed he was investigating her assassination.

"I don't know if someone is trying to play with my mind," she told the newspaper, which reported that, as a result of these apparently sinister events, the Hefer commission is "seriously considering" placing her in witness protection.

There is some irony in this, her former colleagues believe. To put her in witness protection would surely deprive her of the limelight she has preened and so wallowed in for the past three weeks.

What a quandary that would be. But, as some have remarked, it would solve once and for all the vexing question of what to wear each day to the commission . . .

On the face of it, the Hefer commission can be said, in part, to be about journalism's failure. It owes its existence to Ranjeni Munusamy. The stuff she leaked to City Press to the effect that National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka was once accused of having been an apartheid spy not only led to her parting ways with this newspaper, but ultimately resulted in the costly palaver in Bloemfontein.

She has played the commission like a seasoned trouper. If she's given herself a role in this drama, then it is that of femme fatale. She is, in the words of Kessie Naidu, the senior counsel leading evidence before the commission, "that girl".

And that girl, one of the most photographed woman in the country these days, has so entered the national consciousness that callers to radio talk shows have confessed to having powerful feelings for her; unrequited crushes and romantic urges . . .

Television has played its part as well. Munusamy, it would appear, has spent a large part of her time in Bloemfontein in soft focus. It is not only flattering, but it has given her an ethereal and spiritual presence in what is, ultimately, a shabby and grubby business.

There has been the grandstanding; the public declaration that she would never reveal her sources. When it was revealed that the spy in question was not Ngcuka after all, but dowdy Vanessa Brereton - a white woman from the Eastern Cape now living in considerable shame in England - there were outraged howls from the usual quarters and bitter condemnations from those whose trust Brereton had betrayed.

But this was a mere sideshow, like Munusamy's impromptu press conferences where she briefed reporters before the start of proceedings at the commission . . .

Two of Munusamy's sources have now been revealed. They are Mo Shaik, adviser to Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, and - like his brothers Yunis, Schabir and Chippy - close to Deputy President Jacob Zuma; and apartheid cop Gideon Niewoudt.

On the face of it, this is a most bizarre revelation. Had she not claimed earlier that her life would be in danger if the identities of her sources were revealed?

But Munusamy has been extremely friendly with Shaik over the past three weeks. Television viewers watching the proceedings unfold in Bloemfontein would surely have noticed their chummy behaviour, sitting side by side.

Naidu certainly has. "You have such a wonderful relationship," the advocate remarked. "I have noticed that regularly."

Naidu may have been joking when he said that, and City Press may have been having a little fun at Shaik's expense when it drew attention to his "magnetism" over women by pointing out the "adoring looks cast in his direction by [Munusamy]", but the point has been made - there is something inappropriate going on here. What makes it inappropriate is that Munusamy is supposed to be a journalist.

A lot has been written of Ranjeni Munusamy's childhood in the northern KwaZulu-Natal coal mining village of Dannhauser and how, as a precocious six-year-old, she used to hang out at her father's barber shop, listening to men gossip and discuss the issues of the day.

Some of the stuff is so hagiographic that it is like swimming in porridge - heavy going, but in a comforting, warm way Munusamy was a "supernova journalist", her five-year career at the Sunday Times "meteoric", and "hardly a week went by without her byline on the front page".

Munusamy has described herself as a "senior political journalist". Her seniority, it must be pointed out, has little to do with experience, but rather the senior ANC contacts she picked up in the two years she spent as public relations officer to S'bu Ndebele, leader of the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal.

Her contacts, she boasted to journalist Henk Rossouw, coupled with her "experience in government" and "knowing how the ANC ticked" gave her an unfair advantage over her colleagues. As Rossouw enthused "[Former President Nelson] Mandela, impressed with her reporting, gave her a call, and they became close. He calls her grand-daughter, admonishes her to get a boyfriend, and worries that she gets in over her head."

But, it is claimed, Munusamy had fallen under the influence of her "connections" and "sources". Journalists have expressed concern at her relationships with Zuma, Mandela's attorney Ismail Ayob and Minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad.

Nonetheless, it is perhaps thanks to her relationship with such people that Munusamy heads up the Presidential Press Corps, that august body of journalists who qualify for direct access to the presidency and senior government officials.

In April this year, she wrote how President Thabo Mbeki has, "in private conversations", bemoaned the poor quality of our journalism, how it "embarrassed" him, and how the man frets that the international community is "judging South Africa by how its fluffing media is reporting it".

Mbeki, Munusamy revealed, has "blazed about the ignorance and contempt of journalists who reported on Africa", and the "irritating errors" they make due to carelessness, or ignorance, or both.

Reading this, it is possible to imagine teeth marks on the stem of Mbeki's pipe from the clenched jaw and fevered gnawing.

But it is impossible to make any sense of the following Munusamy magic

"There is also no precedent for journalistic excellence in this country, as good reporting during the apartheid years had more to do with just being able to tell the story than with telling it well.

"As a result, there is a hit-and-miss style of news reporting and newspapers are peppered with flimsy or superficial analyses, empty reports that provide little insight and editorial content that is sometimes whimsical."

No precedent for journalistic excellence?

I wonder if Munusamy has included herself in this sweeping assumption.

Certainly her former colleagues - particularly those in the award-winning Sunday Times investigations unit - have been included in that assumption.

Munusamy has charged that their relationship with Ngcuka's Scorpions is inappropriate, finding it "ethically questionable" and "mind-blowing". She has voiced concern at the "ferocity" with which this newspaper has pursued the allegations against Zuma regarding the allegedly corrupt arms deal.

So, in order to redress the "bitter and complex political fallout causing substantial damage to the ANC and the government", Munusamy pursued what she termed the Ngcuka story.

It is, however, strange that the deputy president of a country should need Munusamy to protect him from fluffing journalists who are supposedly ignorant, contemptuous and careless. Could it have been that their hit-and-miss style of reporting was hitting more than missing?

And while we're at it, have you noticed how the government voices its concerns about shoddy journalism precisely at the moment that journalism voices its concerns about shoddy government? Funny that.

And funnier still was how Munusamy, for all her concerns about revealing her sources, had revealed a source at least once before.

In March 2001, for example, she outed arms deal whistle-blower Bheki Jacobs.

A complaint has been lodged with the press ombudsman regarding this matter.

Munusamy had been introduced to Jacobs on the proviso that he remained anonymous. She opted instead to not only reveal who he was, but rubbish him as some sort of Walter Mitty-type who "has for five years masqueraded as a secret agent reporting directly to the President".

Munusamy has suggested that the Sunday Times deliberately withheld her Ngcuka story - a possible act of political censorship. But, as events before the Hefer commission have shown, there was no story.

After months and months of flip-flopping around, Munusamy could not and, it transpired, would never be able to independently corroborate the allegation that Ngcuka was an apartheid spy.

She, of all people, would have known how important this was. After all, it was one of the essential criteria - the checks and balances - applied to all stories published in this newspaper. Without it, our reports are, at best, half-cocked.

Over the years, the facts in her reports have been procedurally checked and double-checked. So why it should have been different now? Who knows?

But when it became clear that the Sunday Times was never going to publish her Ngcuka bilge, she leaked it to City Press - "for the sake of the profession", she says.

Laughable as that may be, that's what she told Rossouw. Worryingly, she also conceded that she may have been used in this saga, saying "It's too late to worry about being used." Misinformation, she added, can sometimes stir up the truth.

And how that has backfired in this case.

With acknowledgements to Andrew Donaldson and the Sunday Times.