A city-commissioned probe into the activities of controversial councillor Badhi Chaaban was completely legitimate, Cape Town mayor Helen Zille said on Wednesday.
However, she promised she would ask an outsider with ”impeccable credentials”, such as a retired judge or senior advocate, to establish whether council funds were misused.
She was reacting to an Independent Newspapers report that the Democratic Alliance-led council was ”at the centre of a potential spy scandal”.
The report suggested irregularities in the city’s payment of over R80 000 to private investigators George Fivaz and Associates for a probe into suspected bribery by Chaaban ahead of the recent floor-crossing window.
Zille said the ”convoluted” report appeared to claim that ratepayers had paid for a DA investigation into Chaaban.
”Of course any allegation of this kind is devoid of truth. The investigation into councillor Chaaban was legitimately carried out by the City of Cape Town,” she said.
She said the investigation was ordered by council speaker Dirk Smit following complaints from various councillors that Chaaban had threatened them.
Smit had had a legal obligation to probe these allegations, she said.
Zille, who is also national leader of the DA, said the ”real question” was why police were not pursuing a complaint the city laid against Chaaban in early August.
The allegation that the city paid a DA account was ”both wrong and a red herring to draw attention away from the real criminals in the case”.
African National Congress Western Cape provincial secretary Mcebisi Skwatsha said in a statement on Wednesday afternoon that Zille should resign.
He claimed Zille ”has misused council funds to pay for an illegal investigation that was initiated by the DA for narrow party political interests”.
”It is unacceptable that a council engages in espionage against its own councillors.
”It is an abuse of power and a knife held at the very throat of democracy.” — Sapa