Former Independent Democrats Western Cape leader Lennit Max on Thursday sought to link the party’s national leader, Patricia de Lille, to the Travelgate affair.
De Lille heatedly denied any wrongdoing, and said that as one of a number of clients of one of the implicated travel agencies, she had given her full co-operation to investigators.
Max, who is facing half a dozen party disciplinary charges, told his hearing in Cape Town that during last year’s local government floor crossing window, prospective defectors to the ID had raised concerns about the ID’s stand on Travelgate.
He said he raised the issue with De Lille, asking her what she knew, and whether the reason for her silence on the issue was that she was involved.
”And her reply was, Lennit, yes, I dealt with the Geduldt company,” Max said.
Graham Geduldt owned the now-liquidated Star Travel and he is facing prosecution along with other travel bosses and MPs.
Max said he then asked De Lille again whether she was involved, and she replied: ”I must be honest, the Scorpions are dealing with this issue. I’m also required to testify…”
At that point advocate Willem Heath, who is representing the ID at the hearing, objected to Max’s evidence.
The objection was upheld by independent presiding officer Sarah Christie, who said Max’s attorney Leon van Rensburg had put none of this to De Lille when she testified earlier, and that it was ”quite improper” to raise the matter now.
Van Rensburg said Max’s testimony would be that this was one of the issues that led to a breakdown in his relationship with De Lille, and that the disciplinary charges were a ”smokescreen”.
He said he would be more than happy for the hearing to recall De Lille.
Christie ruled however that the mandate of the inquiry was limited narrowly to whether there was sufficient evidence of misconduct by Max, and said he could raise other matters outside the hearing if he wanted to.
De Lille said afterwards that all Geduldt’s clients had been asked to give information on their dealings with the agency, and she had given all the evidence she had to liquidator Eileen Fey.
”She said I’ve been a model MP… I gave the information to them and it was closed,” De Lille said.
There had been nothing irregular about her relationship with Star Travel, and Max was ”talking nonsense”.
”He must confine himself to the alleged corruption and fraud he’s involved in,” she said.
”He must explain why he misused taxpayers’ money. That is the question before the disciplinary hearing. I’m not before the disciplinary hearing, and he’s talking rubbish.”
Earlier, before Max took the stand, Van Rensburg told Christie that ID secretary general Avril Harding issued a media statement last month saying that after the hearing Max would ”need more than just cosmetic surgery”.
Van Rensburg said he and Max believed this was a threat of physical violence, and that Max and his family were under pain of ”physically being prejudiced”.
Max was unwilling to testify unless Harding retracted the statement and gave an undertaking that this threat would not be carried out, he said.
He said druglords involved in ”all sorts of criminality” were linked to the ID, and one witness for the party in the hearing, a Western Cape MPL, had been convicted for physical violence.
However Christie said the statement contained no direct threat, and that it was ”highly opportunistic and extremely inconvenient to this process” to raise the issue so long after it was made.
”It’s a vulgar remark and at worst in bad taste,” she said.
After a brief adjournment, in which Max phoned his wife and Heath spoke to Harding, Heath told the hearing that Harding denied he intended the statement as a threat.
”He says there’s never been a threat and they don’t intend to threaten Mr Max save with legal action,” he said. ”He admits it was done maybe not in the best of taste.”
Max is charged with dismissing employees and closing ID offices without authorisation, with abusing a constituency allowance, and with unlawfully tape recording a conversation with a fellow ID member.
The hearing resumes on Tuesday. – Sapa