Former Western Cape provincial minister of environment David Malatsi told developers he was prepared to approve their projects without seeing the environmental impact assessments required by law, the George Regional Court heard on Thursday.
A Democratic Alliance councillor from Plettenberg Bay, Johan Brummer, told the court Malatsi made the statement at a meeting of the council, officials, a group of visiting Belgian parliamentarians and members of the public in the seaside town on April 6 last year.
He was testifying in the trial of Malatsi and former premier Peter Marais, who are accused of taking hundreds of thousands of rands in bribes to smooth the way for provincial approval of the R500-million Roodefontein golf estate development at Plettenberg Bay.
The meeting came a day after the two politicians paid a site visit to Roodefontein in the company of its developer, Italian multimillionaire Count Riccardo Agusta, who had been complaining about delays in securing approval from Malatsi’s department.
Brummer, who described himself as “a bit of a greenie” said he had been seated directly behind Malatsi at the meeting, which had had “an enormously anti-environmental tenor”.
One of the Belgians had actually been bragging about how they managed to “knock the greenies down in their Parliament” and stopped environmental legislation being passed, for which he was applauded.
Then Malatsi said something that shocked and “really rattled” him.
“He said, don’t worry, I will approve your developments. You don’t have to do an EIA [environmental impact assessment] as long as you do an EMP [environmental management plan] and show me how my people benefit.”
Brummer said he was struck that Malatsi, the most senior person in the province tasked with protecting the environment, could say this about the legislation that was supposed to perform that function, and that he was supposed to enforce.
“That is something that sticks in one’s mind,” he said.
Brummer said in his evidence-in-chief that Marais was also at the meeting.
However, when Marais’s advocate, Craig Webster, said his client had not in fact been there, Brummer said he was prepared to accept this.
Challenged by Malatsi’s advocate, Pete Mihalik, on why he also said in an affidavit compiled for the DA in November last year that Marais had been present, he replied: “I believed right till this morning that he was there. It could be that I made a mistake there; I’m not disputing that.”
He denied Mihalik’s suggestion that he had placed Marais at the meeting for political reasons related to the conflict between the DA and the New National Party, of which Marais was then a senior member.
He also conceded that the quote about EIAs was the only thing he could recall from Malatsi’s address to the meeting.
Asked by Mihalik how it was he recalled “one little sentence” that potentially damaged his client, Brummer said: “It’s because of the impact. It goes to show what an enormous impact what he said had on me.”
He said former apartheid Cabinet minister Jimmy Kruger was also remembered for only one sentence.
Kruger is best known for his verdict on the death in police detention of black activist Steve Biko: “It leaves me cold.” — Sapa
Roodefontein trial postponed