The Erasmus commission is to hear claims that the Western Cape leader of the Democratic Alliance (DA), Theuns Botha, used private investigators hired by the Cape Town council to undermine his rivals in the party.
The allegation is that Botha piggybacked on a council-ordered probe to spy on the sex life of fellow DA leader Lennit Max, who is seen as his main rival for the DA leadership in the province.
The Erasmus commission, set up by Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool, is also expected to hear that the George municipality was billed for an investigation ordered by Botha relating to last year’s DA leadership race.
Last week, Rasool announced new terms of reference for the commission, which is probing allegations that the DA-led Cape Town council used illegal surveillance methods while investigating controversial councillor Badih Chaaban.
The Mail & Guardian understands that when the commission reconvenes, evidence leader Frans Petersen will rely heavily on evidence gathered by the police during the arrest of Niel van Heerden, a senior official at George Fivaz and Associates, the company hired by the council to conduct surveillance.
He will use evidence garnered from Phillip du Toit, who actually conducted the surveillance. Du Toit faces hijacking charges.
In documents and other testimony before the commission Botha is shown as asking Van Heerden to determine the origins of an SMS circulated among DA members during the party’s leadership election in May last year. This said that Zille, who was campaigning for the party’s leadership, would be a ”nail in the coffin of the Afrikaner”.
The message was traced to a handset used by a DA councillor in Cape Town, Pat Hill, a supporter of Zille, who denied responsibility and suggested that his phone had been ”hacked”.
The commission will hear evidence gathered by the police from Van Heerden’s computer that this operation was billed to the George municipality.
However, Van Heerden said this week said that the claim was based on a ”mistake”. ”We prepared a draft report for Botha on the Pat Hill SMS incident. On the draft report, confiscated at my house by the police, I mistakenly said this inquiry was done for the George municipality,” he said.
The final report, in possession of the M&G, indeed makes no mention of George municipality.
Van Heerden also said no one had been billed for the Pat Hill investigation because the work was not completed. Botha echoed this.
To substantiate claims that Botha piggy-backed on the surveillance of Chaaban, the M&G understands Petersen will again use a confidential document — written by Du Toit’s advocate Johnny Nortje to Van Heerden — confiscated by the police during a raid on Van Heerden’s house.
In this, Botha is said to have asked Du Toit to investigate an alleged sexual affair of Lennit Max and to bill the work to the Chaaban investigation.
Interviewed this week, Botha described the claim as ”absolute nonsense”, saying: ”Police told me they have evidence. I asked them to produce it and they have not done so, because it doesn’t exist.”
Du Toit insisted that the request had not come from Botha, but from former DA councillor Kent Morkel, who has since crossed the floor to the African National Congress.
Max told the M&G this week that the police had told him about Du Toit’s alleged investigation. ”Everyone is now denying this and it’s up to the Erasmus Commission to find out who is lying,” he said.
Morkel ”absolutely denied” asking Du Toit to carry out such surveillance. ”I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said this week.
So far the commission has heard no evidence that laws were broken during the Cape Town council’s investigation of Chaaban, and the new evidence to be presented at the commission suggests a change of strategy.
Petersen will present a more circumstantial narrative that assembles cellphone records, interviews conducted by the provincial organised crime unit of the police, media reports and documents handed to the commission by the police.
The commission has obtained Zille’s phone records, using them to show that she was in frequent contact with party leaders and Van Heerden during ”crucial events” such as Du Toit’s arrest.
Zille said this week that Rasool is ”doing exactly what he is falsely accusing the DA of doing. He is spending taxpayers’ money on a party political witch-hunt, and it is a disgrace.”