ActionSA says it will open a criminal case against the City of Tshwane councillors who allegedly attempted to bribe an ActionSA councillor with an R2million in order for them to vote in favour of Cope’s Dr Murunwa Makwarela as mayor.
Makwarela was elected mayor earlier this month, backed by votes from ANC and EFF councillors, as well as some votes from the DA-led multiparty coalition.
The disgraced Makwarela has since resigned after it was found he did not qualify to be a councillor as he was insolvent. He had been elected by secret ballot.
ActionSA’s Gauteng provincial chairperson, Funzi Ngobeni, flanked by the national chairperson, Michael Beaumont, said they would open a criminal case at the Olievenhoutbosch police station on Thursday.
“ActionSA will provide proof of how opposition councillors offered more than R1 million to persuade them to vote in favour of the opposition party candidate.
“As a party committed to the rule of law, ActionSA stands firmly against any form of bribery – especially if it circumvents the will of the electorate,” said national spokesperson, James de Villiers.
In his Twitter account, Beaumont said ActionSA investigation had revealed that an ANC-aligned councillor offered a R2m bribe to an ActionSA councillor to vote for Makwarela on February 28.
“Proponents of an unchecked right to a secret ballot must see that this right is being abused with the criminal buying and selling of council votes funded by financial interests that will stop at nothing to get to tenders,” he said.
Cope’s lone councillor Makwarela was voted mayor of Tshwane on February 28 following the resignation of the DA’s Randall Williams, who resigned as mayor, a amid the city’s financial woes.
He was then removed as mayor, for being insolvent on March 7 and was reinstated two days later after submitting an insolvency rehabilitation certificate which was discovered to be fake upon investigation, a day later.
He resigned on March 10 as the executive mayor and councillor when the High Court in Pretoria revealed that his debt rehabilitation certificate was indeed fake.
The court said it had no record of a rehabilitation certificate ever being issued for Makwarela or his wife.
The Makwarelas were declared insolvent in August 2016. Cope has since terminated Makwarela’s membership.
-IOL
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