I have spent the greater part of my life in the service of South Africa’s democracy — in its Parliament, as Leader of the Opposition, and in its diplomatic service abroad. I have been the subject of robust criticism throughout that time, and I have never sought to be spared it. Public life invites scrutiny, and rightly so. But scrutiny and falsehood are not the same thing, and I will not allow the latter to stand unanswered when it is directed at a company that employs good people doing entirely legitimate work.

In recent days, Resolve Communications has been the subject of a series of allegations advanced by political figures and amplified by political parties. They have been gravely framed — proximity, privilege, even the language of state capture. What they have conspicuously lacked is the one thing that ought to accompany an accusation of wrongdoing: evidence. Not a single document, not a single unlawful act has been produced, simply because none exists. One of those levelling claims against us conceded, in his own words, that he has none — that he simply “put two and two together.” That is not a basis for a public accusation. It is the absence of one.

Let me state our position plainly and without qualification. Resolve has at all times acted lawfully, transparently and in accordance with the recognised standards of our profession. We represent legitimate, law-abiding businesses — enterprises that invest in this country, create employment and contribute to its growth. We help them engage government openly and on the merits of their case. That is the proper work of public affairs, conducted in every functioning democracy on earth. It is a service to the democratic process, through which the concerns of those affected by government decisions are made known to those who take them.

I want to be especially clear on one point, because it goes to the heart of these insinuations. We do not, and we cannot, direct the decisions of ministers or officials. We have never sought to. Where we have requested a meeting on a client’s behalf and that request has been declined, we have respected the decision without complaint. A request, made and freely refused, is not corruption. To suggest otherwise is to misunderstand — or deliberately to misrepresent — how an open society works.

The comparison to state capture is the part I find most objectionable, and I say so as someone who fought this scourge in various forms from the opposition benches since the advent of South Africa’s hard fought democracy. State capture was the criminal subversion of public institutions for private enrichment, conducted in secret and in defiance of the law. The work of helping a lawful business make its case to government, in the open and on the record, is its precise opposite. To conflate the two is not merely inaccurate. It is an insult to the South Africans who suffered under the real thing, and who fought to bring it to light.

I am not naïve about why this is happening. These allegations have surfaced in the midst of political contests in which Resolve plays no part. We have become a convenient external explanation for difficulties that are, in truth, internal and political. I have seen this pattern before. An identical claim was made against me and our firm in 2019, in the heat of a party dispute; it was untrue then, no charge ever followed, and it is no truer for being revived now.

We are proud of our record and entirely comfortable with fair, fact-based scrutiny. What we will not accept, in silence, is the weaponisation of the language of corruption or wrongdoing to settle political scores at the expense of a legitimate business and the people who work in it.

Where these falsehoods cross into defamation, we are considering our legal remedies.