‘Mmusi is going to take a dim view’

JP Smith vows action over leaked affidavit

TEN officers of the City of Cape Town’s controversial special investigations unit say they did not leak juicy details to the media but in fact had provided information to their political head, councillor JP Smith.

This information had included claims that there had been irregularities in the security upgrades to the home of Mayor Patricia de Lille.

The information had subsequently made headlines in the media.

However, Smith said the officers’ affidavits did not implicate him in the leaking of the information to the media.

“Those affidavits mean nothing. They claim that they didn’t speak to the media. In any case, I haven’t suggested that they spoke to the media… it’s alleged by journalists.

“I’d explained why it was problematic, why the SIU was being shut down and I asked them for a list of their successes. They have had significant and meaningful successes,” said Smith of the unit.

Smith and De Lille are being investigated by a DA ad hoc committee chaired by John Steenhuisen and in the interim have been banned from participating in party political activities.

Media reports earlier this month claimed that upgrades at De Lille’s private residence in Pinelands had cost Cape Town’s ratepayers R702 075.45.

This prompted council speaker Dirk Smit to release a statement indicating R451 000 had been paid by the city for security upgrades at De Lille’s house.

In the affidavit, Reynold Talmakkies, a special adviser in the city’s law enforcement department alongside Mark Brookes, Warren House, Nigel Kelly, Duane Paulsen, Lester Wilton, Bantubathi Mei, Ntsikelelo Lamani, Mthethuvumile Mantambo and Christiaan Cilliers, indicates that on July 25, at a meeting with executive director for safety and security Richard Bosman, they were told their unit’s name would be changed and its mandate “refined”.

Bosman had told them he had been approached by city manager Achmat Ebrahim, who had questioned the unit’s mandate and indicated De Lille intended to shut it down.

What had upset De Lille was that members of the unit had started to investigate councillors, a function which lay in Smith’s office.

“At this very same meeting, Mr Richard Bosman indicated that a solution other than shutting the unit down was that of a name change and the refining of our mandate to investigate matters only within the Safety and Security Directorate (internal investigations),” reads the affidavit.

According to the statement, Talmakkies, a former top cop, was requested by Smith to provide a list of high-profile cases investigated by the SIU.

This list contained 67 cases, including that of the murder of DA councillor Xolile Gwangxu, who was shot in June after a DA meeting in Philippi by an alleged hooded gunman.

Smith said he would report the leaking of the affidavit to DA leader Mmusi Maimane who “is going to take a dim view of this”.