The Erasmus commission, set up to probe Cape Town’s ”spy” saga, has extended the deadline for submissions to the end of this month.
Announcing this on Wednesday, commission secretary Zithulele Twala said the extension had been requested by the City of Cape Town and private investigators George Fivaz and Associates.
Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool originally set January 31 as the date by which the commission should hand in its report.
However, Twala said he was unable to say when the commission would start formal hearings or finish its work.
There would be more certainty on the start date after a planning meeting of all those involved and their lawyers in the Cape High Court on Monday January 14.
He warned that the hearings were likely to be ”protracted” as there were already over 40 witnesses and four legal teams, in addition to the commission’s own leader of evidence.
He expected the hearings could last two or three months, but added that while the commission wanted to perform its task as thoroughly as possible, it also wanted to wrap things up ”sooner rather than later”.
A number of submissions had been made by the original December 28 deadline, but he would not say by whom because he did not want to expose them at this stage or put them under pressure.
One of the reasons Fivaz had asked for an extension was that a number of documents the firm needed had been confiscated by the police, and there were also pending legal issues it needed to sort out.
The head of Fivaz’s Mossel Bay franchise, Niel van Heerden, is currently facing charges of fraud and perjury related to the spy saga.
The city had said most of the people key to the case had been on leave, and it was waiting for the outcome of its own probe into the matter, commissioned by mayor Helen Zille.
Twala said that probe, being conducted by a city advocate, was due to report by January 31.
The commission would ask for a copy of that report.
Twala said the commission, which is chaired by Judge Nathan Erasmus, would hold its hearings in the Cape High Court, which meant the taxpayer would not be paying for a venue.
He did not know what the commission’s budget was, but it had been told by the province — in no uncertain terms — that the budget was tight.
The commission was appointed at the beginning of December to probe allegations of maladministration, corruption and fraud in the City of Cape Town.
It has been mandated to probe the city’s conduct in hiring Fivaz to investigate maverick councillor Badih Chaaban. — Sapa