Trollip acts on racist e-mail
DA suspends Summerstrand councillor Stanford Slabbert
DA councillor Stanford Slabbert was suspended yesterday pending a disciplinary hearing early next month where he will be charged with bringing the party into disrepute by distributing a racist e-mail slamming the ANC’s rule to date.
The decision came after a series of investigative meetings, with the party’s provincial leadership descending on Nelson Mandela Bay this week to deal with the matter.
Summerstrand councillor Slabbert, however, last night denied any knowledge of the suspension despite DA provincial chairman Edmund van Vuuren saying he had sent him an e-mail earlier yesterday informing him of it .“I’ve heard nothing about that and have no comment,” Slabbert said before terminating the call.
At a meeting of the party’s provincial executive in Nelson Mandela Bay yesterday, its leader in the province, Athol Trollip, said he had come to the decision to suspend Slabbert after he had “thoroughly investigated” the matter.
Trollip said the investigation included numerous meetings with the DA caucus in the metro. “He will face a disciplinary inquiry where he will be charged with bringing the party into disrepute and contravening the provisions of the DA Federal Constitution.”
This is not the first time Slabbert will be hauled before a disciplinary committee. He was fired as Nelson Mandela Bay Tourism sports officer eight years ago after pornographic material was found on his work computer and for using the “f-word”.
News of the racist e-mail dominated headlines last week. It angered members of the ANC and other political parties, including the DA’s own councillors – some of whom felt the suspension was brought on by external pressure.
The e-mail, titled “Opinion on SA”, was copied from an anti-ANC blog post and forwarded by Slabbert to the party’s councillors and senior provincial leaders.
It insults President Jacob Zuma, saying he has more wives than brain cells and has presided over a country in which a quarter of schoolgirls are HIV-positive because citizens have “out-fornicated everyone and spread disease more than anyone else”.
It also said the ANC government had produced “dumb idiots who wait for handouts”.
The e-mail was initially forwarded to Slabbert and other DA councillors on Monday last week, but was rejected by the municipality’s email server. The suspended councillor then resent it to his colleagues’ personal e-mail addresses.
Asked who would be looking after Slabbert’s ward while he was on suspension, Trollip said: “As DA leader in the Eastern Cape, I will deal with that when the need arises.”
Trollip arrived in the city on Wednesday, raising two “core issues” with the DA caucus, namely the e-mail distributed by Slabbert and DA councillors leaking information to the media.
A DA councillor was quoted as saying the meeting merely papered over the cracks and was more of a witch-hunt to find who had leaked the e-mail to the media.
DA councillor Knight Mali was vocal throughout the race row, saying the e-mail was an example of racially insensitive comments often made by the party’s leaders in Nelson Mandela Bay.
ANC officials in the city, who plan to lodge complaints about the e-mail with the South African Human Rights Commission and the South African Institute of Race Relations, said Slabbert should have been fired.
ANC regional secretary Zandisile Qupe said: “He is not the type of person to be in any leadership position and should be fired, not suspended. Despite his little suspension, the NMB ANC are still going ahead with the complaint.”