Members of the party have been accused of irregularly allocating council houses to family members
Barry Streek
Two new corruption scandals have rocked the Democratic Alliance in Cape Town this week, as the party battles to control the damage caused by the street renaming saga.
Affidavits have surfaced alleging that a DA councillor was involved in the irregular allocation of council houses to family members.
This follows earlier claims that DA councillors have irregularly sold housing application forms and exploited housing applications to buy votes.
Two councillors, Una Pick and Bonita Jacobs, have been suspended after Willem Heath’s inquiry into the Cape Town vote-rigging saga found they had committed fraud, while mayor Peter Marais is on compulsory leave.
Acting mayor Belinda Walker says the DA is committed to “open and transparent governance”, adding that those accused must be considered innocent until proved otherwise.
Unicity speaker Danny de la Cruz insists any complaint about councillors will be “immediately” investigated and considered by the rules committee to assess whether the councillors’ code of conduct has been violated.
The United Democratic Movement has submitted an affidavit to Western Cape MEC for Local Government and Development Planning Pierre Uys, calling for a commission of inquiry into the actions of two other DA councillors, Gawa Samuels and Wilma Brady.
This week the Mail & Guardian obtained a new affidavit giving the names of four of Samuels’s family members and her domestic servant, together with the houses and plot numbers they were allocated in Wesbank in northern Cape Town.
One of the houses, it is alleged, was never occupied and was converted into a superette. Another was rented to a doctor who opened a surgery and a third turned into a tuck shop.
The African National Congress’s Cameron Dugmore says the party received an affidavit alleging that another DA councillor, Asa Abrahams, had facilitated the sale of a Reconstruction and Development Programme house for R8000 in Delft.
Last week the ANC accused a DA organiser, Nongezile Makeleni, of buying votes by offering jobs and houses in exchange for DA membership. It said charges of theft under false pretences were laid against her, and that she would appear in court on September 10.
According to police, Makeleni demanded about R40 from Langa residents, promising them lucrative jobs and houses in return. So far more than 500 people claim they paid the money.
One of Makeleni’s alleged victims, Nozipo Bokwe, said some people had quit their jobs after promises from Makeleni.
“She told us that she was offering us jobs and later houses provided we could pay R42 before we could start working,” Bokwe claimed.
“When we asked her what the money was for, she told us R20 was for joining the DA, R10 was for a DA launch, R5 was a donation for a DA member who died, another R5 to open a bank account and R1 would go towards a DA councillor’s graduation fees.
“What surprised me was that only R20 from the amount was reflected on our receipts that we were given by Makeleni on our first day of work.
“We were told that our salary would be R120 a day. This prompted most of us to abandon our jobs because we thought this was the best offer.
Nokwe says the day before they were supposed to be paid, Makeleni told them not to come to work because it was raining. “We then told her to give us our salaries the next day. To my dismay she told us that we were only volunteers and that there were no salaries available for us. We had no other alternative but to report the matter to the police.”
The ANC said a DA councillor, Khuluulwa Mpongo, was implicated in such “patronage” and it had submitted a formal complaint about her to De la Cruz. De la Cruz confirmed he was investigating the complaint.
De la Cruz said the UDM complaints about Samuels and Brady had not been referred to him and that Uys would decide whether or not to appoint a commission of inquiry into them.
When the UDM first made claims on May 15 about housing application forms being sold for R20 to R30 in the Delft area, Marais appointed Samuels to investigate the issue.
Additional reporting by Mamotloga Ramohlale