A Cape Town city councillor on Monday denied that he was offering bribes to fellow councillors to join a new political party later this year.
Badih Chaaban, a proportionally elected councillor for the African Muslim Party (AMP), was responding to a statement issued by the Independent Democrats (ID) on the weekend.
The ID said several of its councillors had been approached by ”a controversial councillor and businessman” to join a new party during the September municipal floor-crossing window.
”Cash is being brought to these meetings in plastic bags. A deposit of between R2 000 and R5 000 is being offered in cash and a further amount of between R5 000 and R10 000 a month until September,” the ID said.
Chaaban said that since he became a councillor in 2006 he had been targeted by ID city caucus leader Simon Grindrod as a shady character with underworld links.
”I presume that again the ID is up to its tricks of slandering people,” he said.
He denied ”one hundred percent” that he was bribing people, and said the ID was merely getting cold chills at the thought of the looming window, and of its own members doing what party leader Patricia de Lille did in deserting the Pan Africanist Congress.
Though he had in the past spoken to various people about forming a new party, the Independent Electoral Commission would verify that he had not registered one.
”I have not made up my mind if I want to open up a political party or not,” he said.
Asked if he would register one before September, he replied: ”I don’t think I’m able to answer you now, because I’m working out the permutations.
”I’m not going to lie to you and say, definitely I’m not going to form a party.”
Chaaban said he was at a personal crossroads, trying to decide whether to continue in politics, or to devote himself to his business career.
He said big parties were taking the voters for a ride, and were riddled with hypocrisy, corruption, nepotism and double standards.
”I believe voters at large are not getting their money’s worth,” he said.
He thought voters would get a much better deal out of someone like him, because he was a businessman and knew how things worked.
The city, which was R20-billion enterprise, was being run by ”a bunch of amateurs”.
”I’m a gentleman, I believe, and I have high morals,” he said.
Chaaban is currently suing city mayor Helen Zille for R30 000 for defamation following remarks she made in a radio interview.
Earlier this year he reportedly entered into talks with the African National Congress, without his party’s consent, with the intention of forming an alliance to unseat Zille.
As a result the AMP was expelled from the Democratic Alliance-led governing coalition. — Sapa