/ 29 August 2007

Chaaban offered me cash and a woman, says DA leader

Controversial Cape Town councillor Badih Chaaban offered the Democratic Alliance’s (DA) Western Cape leader Theuns Botha R200 000 in cash and a woman in a floor-crossing bribe, Botha said on Wednesday.

However, Chaaban has denied the claim, saying it was in fact Botha who proposed the payment.

”I’m much too clever to do bribery and corruption,” he said.

The allegation is the latest salvo in hostilities ahead of the floor-crossing window, which opens on Saturday.

Botha, flanked by DA leader and city mayor Helen Zille, told reporters that Chaaban was trying ”every dirty trick in the book” to unseat the DA-controlled city government.

He said Chaaban asked for a meeting, to which he agreed after consulting the DA national leadership, and which took place on August 13.

At the meeting, in Botha’s office at the provincial legislature, Chaaban had explained that he needed seven more councillors to promise to cross the floor to secure control of Cape Town.

”Mr Chaaban said that if I would ensure that seven councillors crossed to his new party, he would handsomely reward me for my efforts,” Botha said.

”He would pay me R200 000 and — even more alarmingly — he would give me the services of a 22-year-old woman.”

Botha said he taped the meeting, which had been referred to the police.

”Mr Chaaban is the single biggest danger to democracy in the City of Cape Town,” he said.

Chaaban told the South African Press Association the meeting, which he had understood would be a ”fishing expedition” on both sides, took place at Botha’s invitation, and that he, too, had taped it.

”He kept telling me, ‘what can I do, what do you want from me’,” Chaaban said.

When he told Botha he needed seven DA councillors to cross the floor — a figure he plucked out of the air in order to play along with the DA leader — Botha asked what was in it for him, and indicated with a two-finger gesture that he wanted R200 000 in cash.

Chaaban said he did later ask Botha if he wanted the services of a 22-year-old Russian woman, but this was merely an unsuccessful attempt on his part to determine whether Botha was gay, and was not related to the floor-crossing.

”I knew this was a sting operation from the start,” he said. ”I could see it from his face. Unfortunately he doesn’t have a poker face…

”He won’t make a very good actor. Helen is an A-grade actor, but he’s B grade.”

Chaaban said he was ready to go to court with his tape over the matter.

”I’m like a battery, Eveready,” he said.

Zille told the media briefing that she raised her concerns about floor-crossing with President Thabo Mbeki at her official meeting with him on Tuesday afternoon.

Though it was clear that Mbeki was not getting involved in the minutiae of what was happening in every council in the country, she did suggest that was happening in Cape Town warranted his personal attention.

This was because it went beyond the ”normal wheeling and dealing” and could lead to criminalisation of the state.

Mbeki had seemed disturbed at the information, and gave an undertaking he would look into it.

”Some people see the state as a vehicle for achieving self-enrichment, business contacts or enrichment for others,” she said.

”We will not allow that to creep into the Cape Town administration or any other administration where we have a chance to prevent it.”

Last week the city speaker released findings of an investigation that alleged that Chaaban had offered DA and Independent Democrats councillors cash and posts in exchange for jumping ship.

Chaaban is also suing Zille for defamation. — Sapa