DA lays charges against ANC officials involved in "Project Reclaim"

Note to editors: The following statement was distributed at a press conference held in Parliament today.

Today we are laying criminal charges against seven people for their role in an illegal ANC plot codenamed Project Reclaim.

Project Reclaim appears to be a coordinated attempt to bribe DA ward councillors to give up their seats and stand for the ANC in the by-election triggered by their resignation.

The results of a five-month DA investigation are contained in a dossier that we will personally be handing to the South African Police Service this afternoon as evidence to be used in a criminal investigation.

The evidence suggests that, soon after suffering sweeping defeats in the 2011 municipal elections, the provincial ANC leadership compiled a ‘hit list' of councillors in strategic Western Cape local councils (see Annexure 3). 

The Project Reclaim ‘hit list', marked "strictly confidential" and "not for distribution", targets 11 DA and 16 non-DA councillors in eight municipalities. The affidavits and statements we are releasing today expose how attempts were made to bribe DA councillors. 

Details contained in these documents are as follows:

Bitou:

DA Councillor Nevelle de Waal was approached six times within a week of the 2011 election by a number of individuals linked to the ANC. These include ANC member Marius Murths, ANC Chairperson in Ward 1 Ralph Mapondo and businessman and former Regional ANC leader, Ralph Stander.

Nevelle de Waal was offered the equivalent of five years of a councillor's salary in cash (approx. R900 000) and "any position" he wants if he resigns and runs on an ANC ticket in the ensuing by-election (see Annexure 4). 

Breede Valley:

DA Councillor Thobile Dyonta was offered the equivalent of two months' salary and a position as the council's community safety officer in exchange for resigning his seat (see Annexure 5). He was approached by ANC councillor Pat Marran, and Civic Independent councillor Bosch Willemse.

Bergrivier:

DA Councillor Dirk Adams was offered a "higher position" in the ANC and benefits from construction tenders for projects the national government was planning to implement in Wittewater (see Annexure 6 and 7). He was approached by Cobie Greef, an ANC member and former PA to Sakkie Jenner. Greef is now an employee in the Cederberg Mayor's office.

Saldanha:

DA Councillors Olwene Daniels, Elize Steyn, Sucilla van Tura and Ryan Don were offered "positions" in the ANC and their share of "millions of rands" due to be "released by the national government". (see Annexure 8). They were approached by Jeffrey Swarts, ANC councillor on the West Coast District Council.

The ANC's attempts to bribe these councillors fell flat. Instead, these DA councillors diligently recorded all interactions with those attempting to bribe them and reported the incidents to the party leadership.

But the ANC was successful in forcing two by-elections in Cederberg as part of Project Reclaim (see Annexure 9). The ANC hit list states "successes with Cederberg municipality should serve as a guideline". 

The first of these by-elections took place on 7 September 2011 in Ward 6. Ex-DA councillor William Abels won on an ANC ticket, albeit by a far smaller margin than his election as a DA councillor four months earlier. The second by-election took place on 9 November 2011 in ward 4. The ward was retained by the DA. 

We are currently conducting further investigations to ascertain whether Koos Brandt and William Abels benefited improperly as a result of resigning their seats.

Any councillor who accepts bribes or attempts to bribe others is in breach of Section 7 of the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act. This legislation prohibits the bribery, both attempted and successful, of municipal councillors.

The DA will therefore lay charges against all those we suspect have broken the law. The individuals being charged at this stage are the following:

• Marius Murths (ANC member in Bitou)
• Ralph Mapondo (ANC chairperson in Bitou)
• Ralph Stander (Former ANC regional leader in Bitou)
• Bosch Willemse (Civic Independent councillor in Breede Valley)
• Pat Marran (ANC councillor in Breede Valley)
• Cobie Greef (ANC member and former PA to Sakkie Jenner; Greef is now an employee in the Mayor's Office in Cederberg)
• Jeffrey Swarts (ANC Councillor in West Coast District)

Our investigation is ongoing and charges may be laid against more individuals as new information comes to light.

I will also today write to the Mayors of the affected councils to request an urgent investigation into those councillors who appear to have contravened the Councillors Code of Conduct. This includes the former DA councillors in the Cederberg, Koos Brandt and William Abels, as well as Bosch Willemse (Breede Valley), Pat Marran (Breede Valley) and Jeffrey Swarts (West Coast district). 

If councillors are found to have violated the code they may lose their council seats in line with the penalties prescribed by the code. After due process has been followed, the respective councils, via their Speaker, will inform the Western Cape MEC for Local Government of the outcome of the investigations and the sanction.

It is unlikely that any of these ANC councillors and affiliates would have acted without instructions to do so from the ANC provincial leadership. And so we will expect any police investigation to ascertain on whose orders they were acting. 

We challenge ANC Provincial Leader Marius Fransman to publicly and categorically deny that he had anything to do with Project Reclaim. 

The ANC lost its moral compass long before it started losing elections in the Western Cape. These revelations show the lengths the ANC is prepared to go to reclaim power in the province, even if it means breaking the law.

The DA will continue to focus on what it was elected to do. And that is to improve the lives of the people of this province step-by-step. It will take more than a plot hatched in the ANC's dirty tricks department to stop us from delivering on our mandate. 

Statement issued by Theuns Botha, DA Leader in the Western Cape, November 29 2011

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