DA legal team probes MP’s citizenship

THE Democratic Alliance (DA) is seeking legal advice after questions were raised about its MP, Phumzile van Damme’s, South African citizenship.

A Sunday Times front page exposé revealed that the legality of Ms van Damme’s South African citizenship was in doubt, which would place her position as a member of Parliament at risk.

The African National Congress (ANC) has called on the relevant authorities to investigate.

DA leader Helen Zille yesterday said the party remained 100% behind Ms van Damme, whom she felt was being unfairly condemned. Ms van Damme was recently appointed national spokeswoman, along with spokesman Marius Redelinghuys.

Ms van Damme’s position in Parliament remains in question while the DA’s legal team probes the matter. “We have got lawyers onto it.... The bottom line is no one knows where they were born until our parents tell us,” Ms Zille said yesterday. “She always believed she was born in Nelspruit ... how would you even know you were born somewhere else? It’s an absolute travesty.”

ANC national spokesman Zizi Kodwa yesterday urged the DA to issue an “explanation” to the nation for “misleading and lying” to the people. The ANC’s chief whip in Parliament, Stone Sizani, said the DA “window-dressing exercise” of appointing “black people to conceal its real identity” had exposed Ms van Damme to unnecessary public humiliation.

The ANC said: “This public scrutiny into Ms van Damme’s personal life history could have been avoided had the DA con- ducted basic checks and made corrections where necessary.”

Ms Zille said before Ms van Damme was appointed as an MP she had worked in various roles in the Western Cape government and in Parliament. She was previously the head of parliamentary research and communications for the party. Ms van Damme was being “prepared” for public life. Had she known her citizenship was in question, she would have taken measures to address it, Ms Zille said.

Mr Redelinghuys yesterday said the DA would lodge a complaint with the press ombudsman over the story in the weekend newspaper. “The circumstances surrounding her birth and the registration of accompanying documentation cannot be attributed to her and was entirely beyond her control. Labelling Ms van Damme a ‘liar and a fraud’ is defamatory and gutter journalism.”

He said she had become aware of the potential questions around her citizenship when approached by the Sunday Times.

Ms van Damme was apparently born in Swaziland but was under the impression she was born in Nelspruit. However, after the media had raised questions about her birth, she conducted a “personal investigation”, he said.

“Ms van Damme’s recent personal investigation revealed that her birth was registered at home affairs in Pietermaritzburg in the mid-1990s. A home affairs official told her mother she should register her daughter based on the understanding she was born in SA and was entitled to citizenship.”

The DA said Ms van Damme’s grandmother had left SA in the 1950s to escape apartheid and settled in Swaziland.