By Nangamso Mabindla

Eddie Botha's public persona is of a hard-nosed journalist: tough, uncompromising and courageous.

But in the flesh, the Daily Dispatch's business editor and well-known columnist shows a more human side. Sitting at his computer, trade-mark pipe at hand, the veteran journalist fields phone calls from readers pouring out their hearts to him about problems they've encountered either with businesses or with the public sector.

Botha, whose Monday morning column is compulsory reading for anyone living in East London, says that in his Business Breakfast column "I always touch on problems people face or have faced". He adds that he cannot sit around and watch people suffer when he knows he can do something.

His column tackles just about anything from ordinary people having their houses attached by banks to an airline not having red wine available during a flight.

He is surrounded by clutter; papers piled high on his desk. "It's always like this," he indicates. Clearly, his focus is elsewhere, not on keeping his office orderly.

The award-winning journalist sees the profession as a calling: "I don't believe in community projects or affiliation, I believe my pen is the only thing that can help the communities' voices to be heard."

Botha dropped out of Stellenbosch University where he was supposed to be studying for a law degree. "I knew law wasn't for me, I'm too lazy to be a lawyer," he says, glancing at his computer, where he is busy preparing next Monday's column.

Recalling his early days as a young reporter in 1974 on Rapport, Botha says he always knew journalism was for him. "I just knew this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life." He talks of the thrill of seeing articles appear in print and of the need to know what is happening around him. "I enjoy writing and even now, I still get excited when I pick up the Dispatch every morning because I want to see the articles in the paper."

After a stint at Rapport Botha became the Financial Mail's Cape Town bureau chief in 1979 and was appointed news editor 1982. A highlight of his career came when Botha was appointed Washington bureau chief, where he was involved covering Ronald Reagan's election campaign.

"Although that was incredible, the most important interview I've ever done was an interview with Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe when he became Prime Minister. I was the first journalist from South Africa to interview him." The interview had not been easy to set up, "but I persisted because I knew I had to get the story".

In the mid 1990s Botha and his wife, Dr Heloise Uys, visited East London on a holiday, staying in the suburb of Gonubie. "We fell in love with the place. Heloise wanted to make it our home because she wanted to open a psychiatric practice here." He says the beauty of East London captivated them.

Botha says he knew he had no chance of winning an argument with his wife, so he asked for a transfer from the Financial Mail to the Daily Dispatch. That proved to be an easy request as both newspapers were owned by Times Media Limited, now Johnnic Communications. In 1997 Botha became the business editor of the Daily Dispatch.

Over the years Botha's won a number of awards for his work. He won the Stellenbosch Farmers Winery award for Enterprising Journalism for his coverage of the aborted coup by South Africa mercenaries in the Seychelles and the subsequent hijack trial. In 1988 Botha received the Checkers award for Consumer Journalism for an exposé of irregularities and corruption involving high-ranking officials in the erstwhile Department of Education and Training.

In 1994 he was awarded the Transnet award for Transport Journalism for his coverage of the liquidation of the Cape Investment Bank and the subsequent loss of R247-million by the SA Rail Commuter Corp.

Although he has had the opportunity to travel widely - "to see the world and meet different people" - he says he would never leave East London. Botha says while he has learnt much from other people about their cultures, the people of East London "are warm and, whether you are black or white, they embrace you".

For now Eddie Botha is a content man: he loves his work and enjoys writing his column, being the voice for the people when necessary. As for retirement? "That won't be anytime soon," he says.

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