Johannesburg – A screengrab of an email, allegedly from an employee of insurance company MiWay, calling black people “baboons” and claiming that a final decision was taken at a managers’ meeting that 90% of claims lodged by blacks would be rejected as from August 1, is causing a stir on social media.
MiWay has said the email is "fake".
The email is dated March 27, 2017, and was sent at 15:26.
The email, addressed to someone called Nobu, reads: "Good day Nobu. This is a reminder of yesterdays (sic) managers meeting. The final decision was to reject 90% of claims made by black people as from 1 August 2017. They are an easy target, its (sic) also a great opportunity to save money and also punish these black baboons."
A screengrab of an email, allegedly from an employee of insurance company MiWay, calling black people “baboons”. (Supplied)
However, MiWay CEO Rene Otto told News24 on Thursday that he was aware of the email and that "it’s fake".
Otto denied that there was such a meeting in March and said the employee whose name appears on the email was not even in management.
"There was no such meeting where such a decision was taken," he said.
Otto said they had traced the origin of the email.
"It’s a disgruntled client who is unhappy because of a decision we took by not paying that person’s claim. Obviously, [the client] had email contact with us because, in the process of validating the claim, we did send an email to the client requesting information.
"So, [the client] obviously used that screen background, that looks like a Miway email, with the individuals name on it and went and manipulated it and posted it on social media," he said.
He said the name of the client was known.
"It angers us, we know who it is. We will take criminal and civil steps," Otto said.
