GOOD Statement by Brett Herron,
GOOD Secretary-General & Member of the Western Cape Parliament
09 February 2025
The Western Cape Commissioner of Police’s comments that it would be impossible to share evidence to anyone outside of a formal investigation, including a mayor, confirms what any common sense person would expect.
The mayor’s suggestion that he received evidence from the police after they raided former Mayco Member Malusi Booi’s office, but no evidence after the police raided the offices of JP Smith and Xanthea Limberg was always patently false.
No legitimate investigation by the police would include briefing a political leader about what evidence the police have.
In 2023, Malusi Booi, who was Mayco member for Human Settlements was suspended on the16th of March, one day after the raid on his office. He was officially fired by the City on the 23rd of March and the DA suspended his party membership by the end of the month. Booi was only arrested and officially charged in September 2023.
At the time of suspending Booi, Hill-Lewis said “The SAPS informed me this morning the investigation is at an early stage but is potentially serious and relates to alleged fraud and corruption and that further details cannot be disclosed at this time,”
A year later, Smith and Limberg’s offices were raided for very similar reason “Further investigations into tender fraud in the construction sector”.
What this exposes is that the DA has disingenuously created a double standard. One for Booi and another for Smith and Limberg.
In 2023 Hill-Lewis removed Booi from office, not on the basis of evidence from the police but because the “matters under investigation are serious enough to warrant immediate action to protect the integrity of (the) government”
Hill-Lewis has also conveniently ignored the fact that the recent raid of his Mayoral Committee Members’ offices was undertaken in terms of a warrant issued by a judicial officer. That judge or magistrate had to be convinced that there were reasonable grounds to invade the constitutionally protected right to privacy.
A media report this weekend revealed the contents of the senior investigating officer’s affidavits filed in support of the application for warrants. Those affidavits disclosed serious allegations that the police were investigating multiple payments from gang bosses to Smith via Limberg.
Those allegations are still to be confirmed by evidence obtained during the raid and still need to be tested in court, if a prosecution is instituted. But the affidavits, the process, the issuing of warrants and the raiding of offices by nearly 40 police officers is a serious combination of events that demand a more intelligent response from Hill-Lewis.
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