The Western Cape African National Congress on Thursday morning held an emergency executive meeting over the latest acrimonious intra-party fall-out after a police raid on the city council’s procurement department on Wednesday.
The meeting was expected to discuss an accusation that provincial Premier Ebrahim Rasool manipulated police action during their investigation of council tender irregularities relating to a company formerly headed by Mcebisi Skwatsha. Skwatsha, the party’s provincial secretary and until last week the provincial transport minister, was instrumental in Rasool’s ousting as party chairperson.
It is understood that Cape Town mayor NomaIndia Mfeketo brought the matter to the provincial executive committee after Wednesday’s police raid. She was expected to table a sworn affidavit that the raid was “at the behest of Premier Ebrahim Rasool”. However, the Mail & Guardian has learnt that the only reference to Rasool is in documents supporting the search warrant.
During Wednesday’s raid the police seized documents related to the disputed R100-million security contract, of which a R30-million slice was awarded to Skwatsha’s old company, Jama Security. Although Skwatsha resigned from the company in April 2004, his signature appeared on tender documents submitted in July 2004 by the new owner, Taba Skwatsha. The offices of several of the 30 other tender beneficiaries were also raided by the police.
The controversial tender is currently subject to civil litigation brought by the Western Cape Black Security Association. ANC chairperson James Ngculu on Thursday confirmed that the meeting would discuss this latest source of tensions but warned against “knee-jerk reactions”.
This new intra-party spat could not have come at a worse time: the ANC has just emerged from a tense period over the manner of Skwatsha’s departure from the provincial cabinet as per the instruction of the national leadership.