Cape Town - While the DA has welcomed the Western Cape High Court’s ruling concerning Patriotic Alliance (PA) president Gayton McKenzie to account for money raised in Sandton for service delivery, he has hit back, saying it’s nothing but a “fishing expedition”.
The judgment centres around a Section 106 investigation of the Central Karoo District Municipality and McKenzie, to explore whether funds were mismanaged.
The investigation followed claims that McKenzie had hosted a gala dinner in Sandton in 2022 while serving as the mayor of Beaufort West, to raise funds for service delivery for his so-called 100-day promise, which included repairs to the swimming pool, job creation and pothole repairs, but that he failed to hand over the funds to the municipality.
Judgment was delivered on Monday in the matter brought by Local Government MEC Anton Bredell, together with two others, citing the Central Karoo District Municipality, McKenzie, his spokesperson Eugene Botha, and three others as respondents. The court ordered that the respondents pay the costs of the application, including the costs of two counsel.
The application by Bredell called for McKenzie and the other parties to respond and comply with instructions for copies of documentation confirming the utilisation of the funds, invoices, receipts, and progress reports and proof of payments, among others.
Bredell told the Cape Argus yesterday he was satisfied with the court order.
DA provincial leader, Tertuis Simmers, called for McKenzie to account for the funds raised at the event.
“The DA demands that McKenzie and the PA abide by the high court ruling and urgently account for the monies in question,” said Simmers.
Botha said in their response, it was nothing but a “fishing expedition” and that they would comply, but would also be seeking legal action.
“There is nothing sinister in this matter and the respondents, President Gayton McKenzie most of all, have always been willing to share this information, provided that certain limited documents and private bank statements are redacted to protect the privacy of individuals who have no relation to the matter in question.
“President McKenzie was rightly concerned that Bredell and the DA were on a fishing expedition to find ‘dirt’ on him and the PA prior to the recent election, and the DA’s gleeful reaction to the court judgment proves that their eagerness to push this case was deeply politically motivated and was an effort to discredit the PA ahead of elections.”
Botha claimed the judgment was not factually correct. “At this stage we are concerned by some of the patent errors of fact in the judgment such as Honourable Judge (Rosheni) Allie stating that the tickets to a gala dinner fund-raiser were R200 000 per ticket, which is clearly not correct. We will take legal advice and decide the correct way forward to ensure the protection of private individuals from this particular use and abuse of state power."
The Central Karoo’s Municipality’s communications officer, Helene Jacobs, was also approached for comment but did not respond.
genevieve.serra@inl.co.za
Cape Argus