The DA went into the Government of National Unity with a publicly stated objective of preventing the ANC from working with what it calls corrupt Economic Freedom Fighters and uMkhonto Wesizwe Party but finds itself making headlines for not-so-glorious activities. This after a criminal charge of defeating the ends of justice has been laid against DA Federal Council chair Helen Zille. The National Coloured Congress’s Fadiel Adams has opened a case this week with the complaint related to the police’s raid that happened at Civic Centre.
Zille allegedly exposed herself to have known about a HAWKS investigation against two City of Cape Town Mayoral Committee Members JP Smith and Xanthea Limberg related to alleged tender fraud in the DA-run metropolitan municipality.
Adams wants Zille to come clean on how she got to access details of a police investigation and for her to be held accountable for the act which, if proven to be true, may lend her in legal trouble.
“The country should be concerned that Helen Zille has made it known that they knew about the investigation. The question we have is how it could only have come from police. A policeman speaking on an investigation is a crime. He tipped off these people that ‘we are gonna raid’. He’s given them an opportunity if they are guilty, to hide things to delete things,” said Adams insisting that Zille must be taken to task.
In a bizarre twist Zille had argued the police needed to share evidence with Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis to indicate to him if they have a strong case against the two DA members.
The mayor has since claimed to have been briefed by the police and decided not to suspend the two MMCs on the basis that there was no serious evidence against them.
Zille herself admitted during a media briefing on Tuesday that the DA and the mayor were not entitled to blow-by-blow briefings on investigations but expected them as police previously extended the same curtosy when probing Malusi Booi who was swiftly axed by Hill-Lewis as housing MMC based on similar clandestine briefing by investigators.
The inconsistency in the handling of the matter has once again raised questions about how the DA treats its black members in general.
Zille defended the two MMCs as being victims of a politically driven frivolous campaign.
The Cape Town raid comes on the back of revelations that another senior DA leader Dean McPherson had used his position as public works and infrastructure minister in the Government of National Unity, to expedite payment to a particular service provider with access to him.
McPherson also stands accused of trying to frustrate and purge the Chief Executive Officer of the Industrial Development Corporation Mmakgoshi Lekhethe.
The IDC is the government’s implementing agent for large-scale infrastructure projects worth hundreds of billions and the hounding of its first female CEO is seen as part of an attempt by the DA to gain control of the resources it controls.
McPherson has denied any wrongdoing insisting he was merely acting on a complaint by a service provider when he wrote a rather commanding email to a junior staffer in the department despite the ministerial code of conduct clearly barring members of the executive from involving themselves in procurement processes. There’s no record of the minister assisting any other service providers in similar fashion.
The DA has on several occasions threatened to walkout of the GNU if the ANC went ahead with implementation of transformative legislation that the former opposition regards as ‘race-based’ such as the BELA Act, National Health Insurance and the land expropriation act all of which were signed into law by President Cyril Ramaphosa despite threats of collapsing the coalition government that includes 8 other parties with the two being the largest.
The DA’s on-off position has seen the party throwing shade at its member Siviwe Rwarwube, the basic education minister who publicly defied the party when it called on her to openly defy the president by not implementing the BELA Act meant to end centuries of discrimination against non-Afrikaans speaking children who could not attend schools in their own communities on the basis of language and by implication, of race.
The mounting scandals and the consistent resistance by the ANC to threats by the DA means the former opposition may not be able to bargain for concessions on any of the major transformation issues.
The DA meanwhile has revealed that the GNU is the best thing to happen to it and vowed to do everything to ensure the coalition survived the 5 year term possibly laying the foundation for a more right-leaning government in the future.
The ANC meanwhile this week reiterated its stance that it did not view the blue party as an ally.
“We went into this knowing very well that the DA is opposed to everything we want to achieve in terms of the National Democratic Revolution, we knew. Are we going to be overrun by them, certainly not. We have been very clear on our transformation agenda; if the DA thinks it’s a dealbreaker, then it should have been so when we were negotiating to form a government. At this stage we are moving forward with implementation,” said ANC Secretary General Fikile Mbalula on Tuesday.