GR RATEPAYERS
Take concerns to highest level
The Garden Route Ratepayers Alliance has written to top DA leaders expressing concerns about alleged serious governance issues in the Garden Route District Municipality (GRDM), allegedly involving Mayor Memory Booysen and Municipal Manager Monde Stratu.
In a letter addressed to DA leader John Steenhuisen and Federal Chair Helen Zille, the ratepayers have highlighted "worrying events" in which "millions have been lost and/or are potentially to be lost due to irregularities and reported corruption evidently involving the entire council and the senior officials".
"The money that is being lost and stolen is our money and is meant to provide municipal services not least of all to the poorest members of our society who mostly do not have a voice," said Steve Pattinson, chairperson of the Ratepayers Alliance.
Zille responded that she has replied to the ratepayers.
"As an association which is strictly apolitical it is with great reluctance that we communicate with you as executive members of a political party, but we believe we face a crisis and that straight talking to power has become unavoidable. We will not mince our words," said Pattinson.
Pattinson told Steenhuisen and Zille there were "voluminous"
documents doing the rounds – some internal DA documents, subpoenas from the Hawks, confidential documents from the GRDM council, and a recent article in the Cape Independent, "to name a few".
"While we cannot vouch for their provenance, they raise substantial concerns for our constituents and we believe that you need to intervene with urgency," said Pattinson.
It appears that the majority of reported issues refer to the mayor, Memory Booysen, and the municipal manager, Monde Stratu.
"Reports and documentation show that these gentlemen have been closely associated since at least 2012 when both served Bitou Municipality and have been close colleagues since then."
Pattison says reports from this time illustrate how Booysen intervened when Stratu was being held to account for serious alleged financial mismanagement and says as a consequence Bitou Municipality lost several million rand. "Documentation further shows that the matter was reported to Mr [Anton] Bredell in both his capacities of MEC for Local Government and as office bearer of the DA.
"We believe that the MEC should have taken appropriate action and held Booysen and Stratu to account. He evidently did not. We believe the party should also have taken appropriate disciplinary steps. They did not.
"At the very least this behaviour should have been red-flagged and carefully watched and the oversight of one over the other should have been stopped," said Pattinson.
"Inexplicably, to us, these gentlemen were both appointed to GRDM in 2016 and we continue to experience further accusations of wrongdoing with serious financial implications for the GRDM, our members, the ratepayers and residents, to the tune of millions of rand.
"The time has come for you to address these issues once and for all," said Pattinson, who pointed out earlier that what the ratepayers have in common with the DA "is that the vast majority of our members are DA voters who harbour the same expectations of the DA in government as we do".