Advocate to head 'spy' probe

2007-10-30 21:57

Cape Town - A senior Cape Town advocate, Geoff Budlender, is to head the inquiry into the City of Cape Town's "spy" affair.

The appointment was announced on Tuesday afternoon by mayor Helen Zille, who said she was taking out full page advertisements in three local newspapers to explain her position on the matter.

"If there was a mistake... we will set it right, and we will make absolutely sure the city is not one cent out of pocket," she told a media briefing at her office.

Criminal complaint

At the same briefing, city Speaker Dirk Smit said he had re-laid a criminal complaint against controversial councillor Badhi Chaaban.

Police said last week they were treating the matter as an "inquiry" rather than an investigation, in part because the original complaint was lodged by a private-eye working for the city, Phillip du Toit.

Du Toit, hired to investigate Chaaban, has since been arrested on a perlemoen charge.

Police confiscated about 300 tape recordings in a raid on his home and said they were now investigating possible illegal bugging.

Zille, who complained on Monday that the police had given her political rival, the African National Congress premier of the Western Cape Ebrahim Rasool, access to the tapes, said she was allowed to listen to some of the tapes at police headquarters on Tuesday morning.

Brief

She declined to elaborate.

Zille said Budlender would be asked, among other things, to investigate whether in hiring George Fivaz and Associates, the firm Du Toit worked for, the council was footing a bill that should have been paid by the Democratic Alliance.

Zille is leader of the DA.

The DA initially approached Fivaz for a quote to probe Chaaban, but says it decided not to go ahead when it realised the city was launching its own investigation.

Budlender, who has on occasion acted as a judge, would be asked to complete his investigation by December 31, following which his findings would be made public.

Judge Willem Heath

Zille said the full-colour advertisement - explaining that the spy saga was another attempt to bring down the city's multi-party government - would run in three Cape Town newspapers on Wednesday, at a cost of just under R200 000.

The bill would be paid by the DA.

In a statement issued at the same time as the briefing, the Independent Democrats' city caucus leader Simon Grindrod said his party did not believe Zille should have "personally" appointed Budlender to investigate her own administration.

"We have asked that (former) Judge Willem Heath be considered to head the inquiry," he said.

- SAPA