Marais and Heath
sabsy
August 30 2001 at 08:03PM
Cape Town mayor Peter Marais's ill-fated bid to rename two prominent city
streets has resulted in his being compelled to take "leave of absence",
following the release of former judge Willem Heath's report on the
controversy.
Marais had proposed renaming Cape Town's Adderley and Wale streets after
former presidents Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk.
However, in a statement late on Thursday, Marais said he believed the
investigators had gone well beyond their mandate and powers in some of their
"factual findings, conclusions and recommendations".
"I wish to state categorically that upon a consideration of my evidence,
given during the investigation, no reasonable person could possibly make the
findings and arrive at the conclusions set out (in the report)."
The evidence against him was "entirely trivial", Marais said.
Briefing the media on Thursday, Western Cape premier Gerald Morkel said the
report recommended action be taken against Marais and several other
officials for their role in the renaming scandal.
In view of this, a special committee would be appointed to investigate
whether Marais had breached the code of conduct for councillors, and to make
recommendations on whether he should be suspended or removed as mayor.
In the interim, it was decided Marais would immediately go on leave of
absence.
Deputy mayor Belinda Walker would take care of Marais' duties while the
investigation was underway.
Morkel said he had already held tentative discussions with retired judge
Edwin King to carry out the next investigation.
Heath was appointed on July 29 to investigate allegations of
maladministration and fraud around public participation in the street
renaming process.
Heath handed his report to Western Cape local government MEC Pierre Uys on
Tuesday.
In his report, Heath found Marais had "misinformed the public" and "stated
an untruth" to Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon about the numbers
supporting his proposal.
He had also not performed the functions of his office "in good faith,
honestly and in a transparent manner", and was "not acting at all times in
the best interest of the municipality", and in fact "compromised the
credibility and integrity of the council".
Heath also found evidence of fraud on the part of two unicity councillors,
Una Pick and Bonita Jacobs, in respect of details of people supporting
Marais' proposal.
At the briefing, Morkel said both councillors had been immediately
suspended, pending the investigation into whether they had breached the code
of conduct for councillors.
The matter would also be referred to the police for further investigation,
he said.
Regarding the two senior unicity officials named in the controversy -
Marais' spokesperson Johan Smit and senior legal advisor Ben Kieser - Morkel
said the issue would be referred to city manager Robert Maydon to decide
whether or not they should face a disciplinary hearing.
Heath concluded that Kieser and Smit were guilty of maladministration and/or
malpractice.
They did not conduct themselves impartially and without prejudice, and
untainted by personal self-interest.
Kieser, by not managing the process properly, and Smit, by not managing the
public image properly, were not acting in an accountable fashion.
They failed to promote accountable governance, and similarly, therefore, did
not assist Marais to practice accountable governance, the report said.
The did not "guide the community in submitting written and oral
recommendations, representations and complaints to the administration -
Kieser by not taking action, and Smit by not issuing proper and reliable
statements.
However, it was accepted unconditionally that Kieser was not involved in any
fraud perpetrated.
Reacting to the report, Kieser said on Thursday he was glad that together
with Smit he had been found not guilty of all the charges of fraud and
corruption levelled against him.
"I understand that there are certain accusations of maladministration,
mainly concerning the failure to keep the public properly involved.
"In this regard, I have to point out that I submitted a report to the
executive committee of the City of Cape Town on the 21st May, in which I
suggested an advertising campaign, inter alia to better inform the public of
the real issues."
This report was not accepted by the committee, he said.
"If they want to conduct a disciplinary hearing on this issue they should
indict the council and not me... I cannot be blamed that the report was not
accepted," Kieser said.
Smit said that besides having been exonerated on charges of fraud and
corruption, he would also be exonerated on the claims of maladministration
levelled against him.
"They are welcome (to institute disciplinary procedures), I will exonerate
myself. I did not commit maladministration," he said.
DA leader Tony Leon and his deputy Marthinus van Schalkwyk said in a joint
statement that given the findings of the report, the party had acted
correctly in asking the Western Cape government to institute an
investigation.
"The DA is determined that where we are in government, we will act
decisively against substantial allegations of maladministration, corruption
and abuse of the public trust.
"We believe we have done so in this case, even though there has been no
misappropriation of funds or other serious offences."
What was important now was that the government in Cape Town acted swiftly to
rebuild public trust and refocus public attention on its achievements since
December last year, they said. - Sapa
xganon
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Ron McGregor
xganon <nob...@xganon.com> wrote
> The DA acted swiftly to suspend Peter Marais from office until his
possible guilt or innocence has been proved. This is contrary to the actions
of the ANC/SACP/Cosatu alliance regime, who squashes investigations (vis
Yengeni's Wabenzi, the Armaments contracts scandal, Winnie Mandela's
actions, etc) by sweeping it under the carpet.
Actually it was probably the DP part of the DA that acted swiftly. Marais,
Morkel, et al, come from the Nat part of the Democratic Alliance, whose
history of clean governance is not much better than that of the ANC.
As I lifelong Prog/DP supporter, I have to say that I am embarrassed at
being allied to the old enemy, the Nats, and I do not think it does the
formerly clean image of the DP any good at all to be associated with them.
While I appreciate that Tony Leon felt it necessary to embrace "realpolitik"
in order to produce a stronger opposition, I wonder if it wouldn't have been
better to soldier on and wait for the Nats to disintegrate of their own
accord. Then, instead of picking up the whole barrel of apples, some good,
and many bad, we might have remained the DP, and picked up only those who
were prepared to break with their Nat past.
On the other hand, who can you trust. There is a certain "ex-Nat" called
Tertius Delport, who seems to have embraced the DP purely because he needs a
job in politics, and wanted to be on the elevator going up rather than the
one going down. I do not believe that people can change their beliefs so
rapidly.
As somebody once observed, politics makes for strange bedfellows. But the
problem is that in the end, it is always the country that gets fucked.
Laurence Caromba
Ron McGregor <ron...@iafrica.com> wrote in message
news:3b910...@news1.mweb.co.za...
>
> As I lifelong Prog/DP supporter, I have to say that I am embarrassed at
> being allied to the old enemy, the Nats, and I do not think it does the
> formerly clean image of the DP any good at all to be associated with them.
> While I appreciate that Tony Leon felt it necessary to embrace
"realpolitik"
> in order to produce a stronger opposition, I wonder if it wouldn't have
been
> better to soldier on and wait for the Nats to disintegrate of their own
> accord. Then, instead of picking up the whole barrel of apples, some
good,
> and many bad, we might have remained the DP, and picked up only those who
> were prepared to break with their Nat past.
I don't think the issue was entirely one of "realpolitik", but more one of
ideological convenience. Looking at the platforms on which the NNP and DP
campaigned for the last presidential election, there's not much to
diferentiate them. Both of them believe in the free market, privatisation,
racial equality (as opposed to affirmitive action), a tough stance on crime,
private gun ownership etc.
While they are nearly identical in terms of economic policy, there are
obviously some issues (mostly social ones) that are more divise. Things like
the death penalty, abortion, etc. But then, that's fairly typical for a
right-of-centre party like the DA. Look at the British Tory Party or the
American GOP and you'll see the same thing - relative consensus on economic
issues, and massive discrepancies in opinion regarding issues like abortion
and capital punishment. There is no rule that political parties have to be
homogenous. A certain amount of disagreement within a party is a good thing.
What is vitally important for the DA and for the country is to move away
from "opposition politics", which involves nothing more than criticising the
government, and instead build a second major party that can effectively
challenge the ANC for the presidency. And from that perspective, the NNP /
DP hitch-up made perfect sense.
Grantland
Cock. Get rid of Leon , kick out the Broederbonders; ally the
Anglo-African business with the Boer and Zulu Nations on a law and
order(tough) and free-enterprise(radical) platform. Massive
privatization = handover of state assets to the PAC. Bob's yer uncle.
Grantland
Grantland
And free anti-AIDS muti a la MDC. We don't need no revolution.
G
Ron McGregor
Laurence Caromba <car...@lantic.net> wrote
>
> I don't think the issue was entirely one of "realpolitik", but more one of
> ideological convenience.
Um, if you were a lifelong Prog, you would find getting into bed with the
Nats ideologically very inconvenient indeed.
>Looking at the platforms on which the NNP and DP
> campaigned for the last presidential election, there's not much to
> diferentiate them. Both of them believe in the free market, privatisation,
> racial equality (as opposed to affirmitive action), a tough stance on
crime,
> private gun ownership etc.
Yes, the campaigns may have sounded similar. However, do you REALLY believe
that the Nats have suddenly become converted to the ideal of racial
equality? That is a bit like a camel growing a trunk in order to be admitted
to a herd of giraffes. The DP has always been a liberal party, which means
that it is a party of tolerance. The Nats, on the other hand, are legendary
for their intolerance.
In their manner of thinking, the Nats would be far closer to the ANC, but
the fact that the one is white and the other black mean that, although there
is little difference between them, a marriage of ideological convenience
would be out of the question.