Johannesburg – Sunday Independent editor Moshoeshoe Monare has resigned.

The resignation was confirmed by The Star’s editor Makhudu Sefara, IOL reported on Thursday.

According to the report, Monare said his resignation was for personal reasons.

Monare tendered his resignation on Tuesday and will be leaving Independent Newspapers at the end of this month, the company’s CEO Tony Howard said in a statement on Thursday.

Monare was in the same statement quoted as saying: “The past ten years have provided me with enormous professional opportunities and personal growth. It was a decade well spent, and a privilege to have worked with outstanding and extraordinary men and women of Independent Newspapers.”

Upheavals

The Independent Group has been rocked by a number of upheavals in recent months.

Cape Times editor Alide Dasnois was allegedly dismissed on 6 December over her decision to cover former president Nelson Mandela’s death as a wraparound supplement. This was published on the same day the newspaper ran a story which painted its newspaper group shareholder Sekunjalo in a negative light.

Independent News and Media SA (INMSA) chair Iqbal Surve said the move formed part of a strategy aimed at arresting poor sales figures.

“Ms Dasnois was not fired,” Surve said in a statement.

Dasnois, however, has said she was “unfairly dismissed”.

Financial journalist Ann Crotty resigned from the Independent Group’s financial daily, the Business Report this week and longtime labour columnist Terry Bell’s column was suspended in January.-News24