News24.com | Sikonathi Mantshantsha joins News24

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Award-winning financial journalist Sikonathi Mantshantsha will join the News24 team in April.

A former deputy editor of Financial Mail, Mantshantsha has been Eskom's spokesperson for the past three years. During this time, he earned respect for improving transparency at the embattled utility and for his frank assessments of Eskom's operational problems.

Mantshantsha started his career as a messenger at Brait Securities, a stockbroker in Johannesburg. He gradually to also traded bonds and equities as a junior at the same firm. His interest in journalism led him to become a reporter at Media24's financial publications Finweek and Fin24 in the 2000s. He then covered equities, the industrial sector, and markets for the US financial wire service Bloomberg, before joining Business Day and Financial Mail. In 2017, he received the Sanlam Journalist of the Year award.

Mantshantsha is the third writer-at-large to join News24 in recent months, following the appointments of Carol Paton and Phillip de Wet.

He has been appointed to News24's business desk.    

"Our readers will benefit from Sikonathi's outstanding insights into corporate South Africa at a time where the country is relying on the private sector to solve some of its biggest problems," says News24 editor-in-chief Adriaan Basson. "We are excited about providing our subscribers with his hard-hitting reporting and deep analysis of what's happening in business."

News24 has been investing heavily in its business coverage, which includes the appointment of award-winning senior financial journalists, including Paton, Lisa Steyn, Karl Gernetzky and Nick Wilson.

Next week, the inaugural News24 Business Awards will be hosted in Cape Town. Five companies and a CEO will be recognised for their contributions to good corporate citizenship, strategic leadership, client service and transparency.