Day 7: Phone calls!

Our group met with Anton early Tuesday morning to discuss stories.

I'd like to do a story on the ecological aspect of Waterfall, the developers are marketing the estate as being "eco- friendly" and say that they have spent 7 million rand cleaning up the portion of the river that flows on the estate and have a special catchment system in place to filter the rubble and plastics that are allegedly coming ftom Alex.

I would also like to do a story on the estate and the fat cats that have moved in, especially Mr Mashatile AKA Mr Alexander.

I trawled several sites, newspaper archives and the library for more info on Mashatile. I found some interesting stories about the "Alex Mafia".

Tried to call Mashatile's office, was told that his "diary is full" and that I should "try again in a few days time". *sigh*

Made some calls to GDACE (Gauteng Department of Agriculture, Conservation and the Environment). I found it extremely annoying that not one single person in the entire department would discuss Waterfall with me.

Fishy.

Spoke to the editor of "The Midrand Reporter", there seems to be some controversy surrounding the Waterfall Estate - allegations of foul play and threats against reporters.

Will have to try a new approach when dealing with GDACE...