A claim that a South African woman, Gosiame Sithole, gave birth to ten babies earlier this month is not true, an official inquiry has found.
No hospital in Gauteng Province holds a record of decuplets being born there, the provincial government says. Medical tests show that Ms Sithole had not even been pregnant recently, it said.
The 37-year-old is now being held under the Mental Health Act for observation and will be provided with support.
The statement did not elaborate on the reasons behind the fabrication of the story.
Independent Online (IOL), the media group which owns the Pretoria News, which first reported the story, had stood by its reports.
It went on to allege that Sithole delivered the children on 7 June at the Steve Biko Academic Hospital (SBAH) in the South African capital, Pretoria, and said that staff there were ill prepared.
It further accused the hospital and provincial health authorities of trying to cover up medical negligence.
“These allegations are false, unsubstantiated and only serve to tarnish the good reputation of Steve Biko Academic Hospital and the Gauteng provincial government,” the latest statement said.
Where did the story come from?
Sithole, who has six-year-old twins, and her partner Teboho Tsotetsi lived in Thembisa, a township with many working-class residents in Gauteng Province, near Johannesburg.
According to IOL, they attended the same church as Rampedi, and it was here that he was introduced to them in December.
The allegation is that in May he interviewed the couple, who said they were expecting eight babies: a photoshoot shows Sithole looking heavily pregnant.
The birth of a surprise ten babies was announced by the Pretoria News on 8 June, quoting Tsotetsi as the source. He later said he had received text messages from his partner telling him about it, adding he was not allowed at the hospital because of coronavirus restrictions.
Rampedi also relied on WhatsApp messages and did not get independent confirmation of the story from the hospital.
Their local mayor then confirmed the births – which is the point at which other outlets, including the BBC, published the story – but a government spokesman later said the politician had only the family’s word and that no one had yet seen the babies.
Donations began flooding in for the couple and their reputed babies, dubbed the “Thembisa 10”, including one million rand (US$70,000) from the IOL chairman, Iqbal Survé.
But the story began to attract suspicion, first after the Pretoria News failed to disclose the hospital where the babies were born, and then a series of hospitals in Gauteng came out to deny their involvement.
Ten days after the alleged births, IOL made the accusations against the SBAH.
Falling out
The couple seemed to fall out after the initial accusations, with Tsotetsi reporting Sithole missing and asking people to stop donations a week later, while she accused him of wanting to benefit financially from the babies, the Pretoria News reported.
Meanwhile, social workers managed to track down Sithole and she was admitted to hospital for tests last Friday, the Gauteng provincial authorities say.
A leaked memo seen by News24 alleges that Rampedi has recently apologised to IOL for “the reputational damage” the story has caused the group, saying he should have treated it more like an investigative piece rather than a “feel-good story”.
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